Fragile

by Lisa Unger

  Home. She’d said home. Could it happen this fast? You work with someone for more than a year, finally get the guts to ask her out, and the very next night you feel like you’ve loved her forever? And she was using words like we and home. Maybe they were just that right for each other. And just that lonely.

  “That’s a great idea.”

  He reached over and put his hand on her thigh. Then she placed her hand on top of his.

  “Wanda,” he said, and he was surprised at how thick with passion his voice sounded. He found he couldn’t look at her, kept his eyes on the dash. The flood of emotion, the wash of gratitude he felt just not to be alone right now embarrassed him.

  “I know, Charlie,” she said softly, squeezing his hand. “I know.”

  He put the car in gear and started to drive. A light snow was starting to fall.

  17

  Blood cannot be cleaned. Not totally. The proteins react to heat and certain chemicals, tending to bind. Even if the stain is removed, those proteins might remain, making them easily discoverable with today’s forensic technology. But it generally didn’t take fancy police work or high-tech equipment, just an unyielding gaze. Blood splatter is insidious, hiding in the doorjamb or on the baseboards or where the light switch cover meets the wall, any place stressed and tired eyes might miss. And, in Jones’s limited experience with such things, people in general weren’t that smart, thorough, or calculating. Maybe it was just The Hollows. The five homicides that had occurred on his watch had been predictable and easily solved.

  In the case of the Murray home, it wasn’t just the three large spots of blood on the outer gasket of the refrigerator door. It was the Google history on the computer-“how to clean bloodstains”-that told the tale. But Melody Murray wasn’t talking. She’d taken to a silent rocking that Jones didn’t find quite sincere.

  “Melody,” he said, standing in her living room near the arched entry. She reclined in a ratty old La-Z-Boy, her eyes glassy, gaze distant.

  “Whose blood is that? What happened here?”

  “What blood?” she asked, dreamily. “There’s no blood.”

  Seeing her like that made him think of Sarah’s funeral. Melody had gone silent and traumatized like this in the days her friend was missing and was virtually catatonic when Sarah’s body was found. Even then, though she had plenty of reason to lose herself to grief and fear, he didn’t quite buy it.

  In the laundry room, Jones had seen a baseball bat leaning beside the dryer. He walked away from Melody now, went over and picked it up with a gloved hand, stood for a moment feeling its heft and width. An open box of fabric softener on the shelf above released the lightest scent of lilac into the air. Her house was clean, which surprised him. He would have predicted it to be a pigsty. But it was orderly, floors and surfaces free from collected dust.

  Jones could hear the two other detectives moving around upstairs. Katie Walker, the town’s only crime scene tech, a graduate of John Jay College in Manhattan, had already photographed the blood and the position of the bat and now sat at the kitchen table labeling items in crime scene bags-some rags from the washing machine, a pair of dishwashing gloves from the garbage can on the side of the house. She glanced up at him as he passed with the bat. Katie, another graduate of Hollows High, had moved back home to be near her sister, who’d just had twins. Jones liked her; she was quiet, thorough, into details. She didn’t make assumptions, just collected evidence and coolly analyzed it. Of course, they didn’t really need her in The Hollows, not often. But there was money in the budget for a part-time tech. So when Katie asked the Hollows police chief, Marion Butler, for a job, she got it. Tonight, he was glad for it, glad not to have to call in the state police.

  He stood in front of Melody, who was staring at the television with the volume all the way down. Melody looked up at him, her eyes falling on the bat in his hand.

  “Graham play?” he asked.

  She laughed a little. “That lazy shit? I wish.”

  Jones forced a smile. “What’s the bat for?”

  “Protection.”

  “Protection?”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “In case someone breaks in or something, you know.”

  Jones nodded. He sat on the couch next to her chair, carefully put the bat on the coffee table. It rolled a bit; he steadied it with a finger.

  “It must be rough, Mel. Graham is not an easy man to be married to, I’m sure. Can’t hold a job. Always running around. Drinking with his boys.”

  She kept her eyes on him, looking a little less blank.

  “And then, of course, if you suspected he had his eyes on Charlene… That would be enough to make anyone go off the deep end.”

  She offered him a slow blink, and it occurred to him that she’d taken something. He’d found a bottle of prescription painkillers in the medicine cabinet upstairs. All the heat she’d shown in his office-the indignation, grief, fear-was gone. She had that hazy look he remembered from high school, when she was always stoned.

  “No one would blame you for trying to protect your daughter,” he said.

  She put her head in her hands, seemed to fold into herself, and after a moment her shoulders started to shake.

  “Just tell me, Melody,” he said, after she’d released a few shuddering sobs. “What happened here last night?”

  But when she looked up at him, she wasn’t crying, as he’d thought. She was laughing.

  “You always did think I was stupid, didn’t you, Jones?”

  He felt a lash of anger so intense he stood up and walked out of the room, her nasty cackling following him down the hall. He stopped to collect himself.

  “You done, Kate?” he called back, leaning a hand on the oak banister. His chest felt like someone had a rope around him and was pulling tight, making it difficult to breathe. Maggie was always warning him about the speed and intensity of his anger, reminding him to take deep breaths when he felt stressed, suggesting yoga and meditation. What he needed was for people to stop fucking with him. Then he’d be more relaxed.

  “Just about,” she said. She sounded wary, picking up on his tone.

  “We need to get that blood to a lab, compare it with the other DNA samples we’ve obtained here. Find out who it belongs to before the night is out.”

  He was afraid she was going to say, “But that’s going to take weeks.” They didn’t have a lab here in The Hollows. Evidence would have to be sent by squad car to Albany; they’d wait in line behind every other homicide that had come in before them, not that they were even calling it a homicide yet.

  Instead, smart girl that she was, Katie followed his lead. “Yes, sir,” she said briskly. “Right away.”

  He heard her push her chair back, start gathering up her things. Melody stopped laughing. He waited in the hush that fell, his chest releasing, his breath coming more easily.

  “Jones,” Melody said, that pitiable tone creeping back into her voice. “Wait.”

  “I don’t need a ride. My house isn’t far.”

  Sarah kept walking, but Jones saw a little smile turn up the corners of her mouth, as if she was embarrassed by the attention but liked it a little bit, too.

  “Oh, we don’t mind,” said Travis. “You shouldn’t be alone here. It’s getting dark.” Travis had this way of modulating his voice to make himself sound so sweet, so innocent. Jones could never do that, could never mask his intentions or emotions. Even with coaches and teachers, Travis could wheedle himself out of trouble with charm.

  Jones followed her slowly, the gravel of the road crunching beneath his tires.

  “I’m not supposed to ride in cars with boys,” she said, still not looking over at them. She picked up her pace a little bit.

  Travis chuckled. It sounded light and amiable, though it was anything but. Jones watched Travis’s knee jump in a slow, tense rhythm. “We won’t tell.”

  Jones was starting to feel uncomfortable. She clearly didn’t want to get in the car; it was disr
espectful to keep pushing, he knew that even then. But Travis had never learned that. In all his life, he never did learn that. No one ever taught Travis that when a woman said no, sometimes she meant it.

  Jones said nothing, though, did nothing, just continued to follow her slowly. Up ahead, he saw a dark, narrow form making her way down the unpaved road. Even from that distance, he knew it was Melody. Her house was not a tenth of a mile away. He could see the cupola through the trees. She’d probably spotted them from her upstairs window. Melody Murray had always made him uncomfortable, awakened within him some combination of desire and disdain. He’d touched her breast once at a keg party. In a dark closet, they’d rubbed and groped. Then he’d slid his hand beneath her dress and sought the warm flesh of her breast under the silky bra she wore. He could still remember what it felt like, small and soft, oddly heavy in his hand.

  “Here comes trouble,” said Travis. Rumor was that Travis had popped Melody’s cherry in her parents’ bed. Jones didn’t know if it was true or not.

  Sarah looked ahead and gave an enthusiastic wave, then started moving quickly, almost jogging, toward Melody. Was she frightened of them? Did she feel the energy of Travis’s intent, that he wasn’t just offering her a ride? Here again, Jones might have turned around, listening to Travis bitch and moan but then being rid of him for good. But when he brought the car to a stop, considered turning around, Travis got out.

  “Crosby, get back here.”

  But Travis didn’t listen; he approached the two girls, hands in his pockets.

  “Hey, Mel,” Jones heard Travis say, sugary and sly. “Why don’t you guys come for a little ride?”

  Jones stayed in the car, watching the three of them. He remembered Sarah stepping back, Mel leaning in toward Travis, familiar and at ease. Then-whatever was said he couldn’t hear-the three of them were walking toward the car.

  “Pop the trunk, Cooper. Sarah needs to put her stuff back there.”

  Then they were all in the car together, the heat blasting, Robert Plant on the radio. Travis and Melody were in the back. Sarah sat beside him, smelling nice, like soap and flowers.

  “Where are we going?” she wanted to know. He noticed how she edged away from him, trying to push herself toward the door. She had her hands folded primly in her lap. She didn’t want to be there. Why had she agreed to come? He was about to ask if he should just take her home when he heard the pop and hiss of a cigarette lighter from the back. The sharp, tangy odor of marijuana drifted up to the front seat. He looked in the rearview mirror to see that Melody had lit a joint, was taking a deep drag.

  “Melody!” said Sarah, turning around. “What are you doing?”

  “Come on, Sarah,” Melody said as she released the smoke she’d been holding. “Don’t be such a prude.” Travis and Melody started to laugh as she handed him the joint. Sarah turned around and didn’t say anything else, looking tense and pale. Jones didn’t reflect on it for long, just put the car in gear and started to drive. He knew a place they could go and not be bothered.

  18

  The meeting resulted in little more than hurt feelings and frustration. Henry always had good intentions. But there was some resentment that a meeting had been called at all; an abduction was one thing, a runaway quite another-which might explain why attendance was so poor. As Maggie walked with Elizabeth back to her car, she overheard Britney talking to her mother.

  “Why does everyone buy into her drama all the time?”

  “Britney,” Denise said. “This is a serious situation. Charlene is only seventeen.”

  “But she wants to go to New York.”

  Denise released a little laugh. “She’s too young to know what she wants, and she’s certainly too young to know what she needs. New York City is a dangerous place, in more ways than you even know.”

  Maggie didn’t hear the rest of the conversation as the two climbed into their vehicle, a gleaming black Infiniti now covered in a light dusting of snow. But even if they hadn’t moved out of earshot, Maggie would not have been able to hear over Elizabeth complaining about Chief Crosby. “Can you believe that old coot, just sitting there all fat and smug? I never could stand him.”

  “Mom.”

  Ricky had parked beside them, his green GTO looking more blue under the yellow parking lot light. Maggie didn’t like the car, though the old steering column had been replaced with one of the safer, new ones and the glass was new as well. So it wasn’t as unsafe as an old car could be. But it was still too powerful, encouraged her son to drive too fast, and burned too much gasoline. It was loud, too, always woke Jones when Ricky came in late. Naturally, that wasn’t a problem for Maggie, since she always dozed on the couch until her son came home.

  “I mean, really.” Elizabeth was still talking. “What did he think he added to that meeting with all his rambling?”

  “Maybe he was just showing his support.”

  Her mother just grunted as Maggie helped the old woman into the car. “And where was that girl’s mother? And her useless stepfather?”

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  Maggie shut the door, glad for a brief moment of silence as she walked around to the driver’s side. She started the car and turned on the heat, waiting for Ricky to show up at his car, which he did a few minutes later. She rolled down the window and he leaned in.

  “That was a huge waste of time,” he said.

  “It helped establish a time line at least,” said Maggie. “It might be useful in ways that aren’t clear now.”

  Why did she always feel the need to do that-to bring up the positive, to look for the silver lining? And why was she surrounded with people who had the opposite tendency? Sometimes it could be truly exhausting.

  “What happened to Dad?” asked Ricky. She saw the same hurt and disappointment on his face that she’d felt when she noticed Jones gone.

  “He got a call,” she said, though this was just an assumption. “He said they were working on a lead. He’ll get in touch when he knows something. Don’t worry.”

  “Yeah,” Ricky said with a nod. He looked down and moved a rock with his boot.

  “I have to bring your grandmother back to her house,” Maggie said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Go home, I guess. What else can I do? Maybe Britney’s right. Maybe Char wants to be gone from here. Maybe she did write that status update and I’m just kidding myself. Denial, you know?”

  She put a hand on her son’s arm. “I’ll come home after I drop off your grandma,” she said. “We’ll talk some more. Brainstorm.”

  “Okay,” he said, moving toward his car. “Bye, Grandma.”

  “See you, kid. Hang in there.”

  “Rick,” Maggie called. He turned to look at her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Her assurance sounded hollow, even to her own ears. She couldn’t-shouldn’t-offer that guarantee, of course. What she was trying to say was, “I’ll take care of you, no matter what happens.” But the truth was she couldn’t really take care of him any longer. She couldn’t bandage his knee and give him an ice cream; she couldn’t even hold him when he cried. Because he didn’t bring his wounds to her anymore, and he didn’t cry, either. And there wasn’t enough ice cream in the world to soothe the pain of love lost.

  “I know.” He climbed into his car. She watched him drive away before she did the same.

  Maggie always entered her mother’s house with some combination of nostalgia and claustrophobia. The very scent as she walked through the door brought a melee of memories, not of events, necessarily, but of feelings. She wondered if there was any human emotion she had not experienced within these walls-from love to rage, from joy to grief.

  “Want some tea?” her mother asked, shedding her coat on the bench by the door and moving into the kitchen. Jones had taken to calling her the three-legged tyrant, claiming that the cane had made her bossier than ever.

  “Sure.” Maggie didn’t want tea; she wanted to go back to Ricky. But Elizabeth neede
d her, too. She hadn’t spent any real time with her mother in a while and thought a cup of tea wouldn’t take long. Ricky had probably holed himself up his room, music blasting.

  “Do you think something’s happened to that girl?” Elizabeth asked when Maggie entered the kitchen. She noticed that there were dishes in the sink and that crumbs had gathered at the baseboards around the cabinets. The sight gave her pause. Her mother was a meticulous housekeeper, always had been.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  “When she ran off before, how long was she gone?”

  “Not overnight. Usually she was just with a friend. A few hours maybe.”

  Rather than say anything about the dishes, Maggie moved over to the sink. They’d bought Elizabeth a new dishwasher, but she seemed disinclined to use it; Maggie always noticed the drying rack on the counter. She got the soap and sponge from under the sink and started washing.

  “Why don’t you use the dishwasher?”

  Elizabeth didn’t answer, taking cups from the cupboard beside Maggie.

  “We made mistakes, you know, with Sarah. The police didn’t act for over twenty-four hours. There were a lot of wrong assumptions, bad information.”

  “Jones isn’t making that mistake. He’s being thorough. Following up leads, checking stories.” Jones had asked Maggie not to say anything about Graham, and she wouldn’t. Not even to Elizabeth, especially not to Elizabeth.

  “You know something.”

  “No,” Maggie lied, scraping something hard and dry off a plate. “He promised to keep us posted, and I’ll keep you posted. I promise.”

  The kettle started to whistle, and Maggie thought about how she usually made tea in the microwave and it never tasted right. She made a mental note to get a kettle with a whistle when things settled down. A red one.

  While her mother poured the hot (not boiling) water into the flowered porcelain pot and stared at it as if she could will the tea to steep faster with the power of her gaze, Maggie finished the dishes, got the broom from the pantry, and swept the floor.