“I CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.”
“That’s enough.” A new voice; Michael’s lawyer.
Jim stopped the tape. He’d lost his temper, it was hard not to. Michael answered the questions he wanted to, no-commented his way through the ones he didn’t. It was frustrating. They should’ve been on the same side, finding Harry their only concern.
He took the tape out and put it back in the case.
23
No Rough Stuff
“I’m worried about you,” Jim said, quietly.
He turned to look at her, knew she didn’t have the energy to tell him that she was fine. It was too big of a lie, like telling him the sky was green and the grass was blue. He’d stopped by because he hadn’t seen her for a couple of days. He found that she hadn’t left her bed. Her mother was worried, gave him a call because there was nobody else.
She shifted in the bed, rubbed her eyes.
“You’re lucky Jared isn’t pressing charges.”
“Who is he?”
He walked to the window and opened the shutters. Sunlight poured in. It was hot out. He couldn’t remember a summer this hot. There would be a storm soon enough though, just to take the edge of. There always was.
“Nobody.”
“You can’t tell me, is that what you’re saying? He’s my fucking son, Jim. My son,” she said, squinting up at him, sunlight falling over her.
He turned. “You shouldn’t have looked at the file, Jess. You shouldn’t have confronted Jared.”
She sat up, anger flaring in her eyes. “I’m the only person doing something. I’m the only person on the street every day. Where’s the fucking urgency gone, Jim? I see you, taking your time. I see Adam, and all the other officers. I see them in town, stopping for coffee and catching up with people. And I want to scream at them. I want to fucking scream at them to do something—to get up and keep searching, keep people thinking about him. At least act like they’re busy, like they give a shit.”
He looked down at the grass and saw the gardener. He was working hard, pulling at a weed that had managed to grow between two slabs of stone. He was trying to pull it at the root, where it was strongest. He’d give up in a minute—just chop it as low as he could, deal with it another day.
“Jim, are you even listening?”
He turned around. He wanted to wait, for her to calm down. There wasn’t much he could say that she didn’t already know. She was right. The urgency had died, but that was inevitable. It couldn’t be sustained when there was so little to go on. The reporters had moved on to other stories. They’d call him for updates, see if there were any angles they could work but he had nothing to give them.
“I’m doing all I can, believe me. I’m meeting Dr. Stone again in half an hour.”
“Another waste of time.”
“He called. I don’t have much else at the moment, Jess.”
She was sitting up in the bed, her thin top doing little to cover her breasts. He felt bad for noticing, and then worse when she leaned forward and grabbed his belt, pulling him toward her. Worse, because he didn’t stop her.
Henrietta sat with him all day. She hadn’t left the room, she hadn’t wanted to leave his side. She pressed her face into his hair and breathed him in. Occasionally she glanced out of the window, at the shimmering pool, and then at the trees in the distance, as they swayed beneath moonlight that fell onto his face and drained the life from it.
She rocked him slowly. The chair glided back and forth, silently. She’d heard Roger come and go, then come and go again. She wondered what he did each day, how he passed the time. He played golf often, and badly. He played with other members of the club, all former masters of the universe. She’d been out for dinner with them a number of times, quickly realizing that the only common ground they shared was money. They spoke of it as if it wasn’t a crass thing to do, not even reining in their boasts when the waiter delivered their drinks and pretended not to be listening. Boats and cars, houses and stocks.
She brought his head up to her shoulder and nestled it there.
“I suppose I should say goodbye now,” she choked out the words.
She hugged him tightly. Tears fell onto his blanket.
“But I don’t want to. I don’t want to say goodbye. You need to know that. You can’t be replaced. Not ever. I’m so sad that you’re gone, and I always will be.”
When she could cry no more, when her chest ached and his hair was wet through, she once again lay him in his bed and covered him.
Then she walked out of his bedroom, along the hallway and down the stairs.
She stepped into the backyard and unlocked the garage.
The shovel felt heavy. She walked far across the grass, until she came to the willow tree she sometimes sat beneath.
Its branches hung low, streaking her face as she swept through them.
There was no breeze, just stillness.
She sank the shovel into the ground and began to dig.
Jim entered the house silently. There was no alarm.
He stood in the hallway, cream carpets, badly stained. He stared at the marks: looked like mud. They’d all worn shoes covers at first. Forensics had worn coveralls, their eyes peeking out over the tops of their masks, their hoods pulled tight and their purple-gloved hands sifting through Harry’s belongings carefully. They had photographed every inch of the house. He knew it better than his own.
He flipped the lights on—spotlights; too many—and felt the heat on the top of his head. There was a bathroom to the left, never used. Jess stored Harry’s toys in the shower stall. He opened the door. There was a smell, maybe the drains. The floor was tiled, white, unblemished. He caught his reflection in the mirror.
Next to the bathroom was a closet, for coats and shoes, and anything else Jess could fit inside. He moved past it, then descended slowly into Harry’s bedroom.
A single bulb hung above, uncovered. They’d removed the shade. It hung low; they thought it might have been knocked.
The road-map rug was gone. There were drawings on the wall—scribbles of greens and reds—Picassos to Jess. She hadn’t been back since it happened. He didn’t blame her. Her mother had collected what she needed, once Jim had said it was okay.
He tried to imagine it, seeing a clown in the corner of the room, watching him, whispering to Jess.
He took the stairs, passed the kitchen and the living room, then went straight up to the top floor. To Jess’s bedroom. The master bath was next to it.
The bed was big. Jess must have been lost in it when Michael left. Jim walked over and glanced out of the window. There was nothing much to see, just more houses. More people inside, preoccupied with nothing much at all. He took a step back. He could see the neighbor’s light on, the glow from her television. Mrs. Lewis.
He wasn’t sure why he still came here. He’d stopped trying to see something that wasn’t there.
He answered his cell phone on the first ring.
“Detective?”
The voice was gruff, slurry.
“Yeah. This is Jim. Who’s calling?”
“It’s Clifton.”
Jim searched his mind, then it settled on Echo Bay. On the guy with the hacking cough.
“Right. What can I do for you?”
“You remember Arturo? Jared Martin dated his sister.”
There was background noise, a bar.
“Sure.”
He heard Clifton take a sip of something and smack his lips.
“So Arturo’s moved to another site, another developer. He took all my guys with him. Really left me in the shit.”
Jim glanced out the window again. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He heard Clifton cough, then spit. Then someone yell something.
“So his sister is back in town. The rack on her, big ass, not fat, shapely . . . curvature.”
Jim sighed.
“Anyway, I don’t think she’s got papers. So maybe you could come haul he
r in. I tried to tell the sheriff, but he’s sweet on her. Everyone’s sweet on her. Can you put her in jail or something?”
“What’s her name?”
“Mia. She lives on Coral Street. Number seven. They got a shitty place.”
“That it?” Jim said.
“So if you come down now stop by The Saturn Bar. You can buy me a –”
Jim cut him off.
Roger dabbed the sweat from his forehead with his wristband. He leaned down as low as his back would allow and stretched. His muscles burned. He’d sprinted back.
He entered through the side gate and walked round to the pool.
He hadn’t run far really, though he’d been gone for hours.
He wondered if Henrietta was still up. He glanced at the house, though he couldn’t see any lights on. He’d stay outside until he cooled down. He’d shower in one of the guest bathrooms. He didn’t want to wake her.
As he surveyed the garden he saw it: a lump in the grass beside the weeping willow tree that Henrietta loved so much. He’d bought it for her as a gift. She was impatient; they’d delivered it on the back of an articulated lorry ready-grown. It had taken four men to place it. Instant character.
He walked over slowly, taking care not to tread on any of the fuchsias or purple coneflowers that Henrietta adored. The gardener tended to them daily; each bed fanned from a central pathway of striped lawn.
He walked up to the lump and leaned down, running his fingers through the pile of damp earth. Then he parted the willow’s canopy and stepped through, falling straight into a deep hole.
He scrambled out quickly, his knees dark with mud as he crawled back out and onto the lawn.
It was then that he saw her, walking toward him, with a blanket in her arms and tears streaking her face.
“Hen,” he said.
She looked up, startled.
She looked back at the house, and then down at his knees.
He stood, and then took a step toward her.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
She clutched the blanket tightly.
He saw the shovel, discarded to the side.
“What have you got there?”
She shook her head.
He looked back at the hole again, then up at the blanket, at the shape beneath it.
He reached out.
She stepped back again.
“What is it, Hen? Give it to me.”
She took another step back, then cried out as she toppled backward.
The blanket unraveled.
He looked down and gasped.
“It’s a baby.”
She sat up. Roger kneeled beside her, his face pale.
Then he gently picked it up. It was light.
“It’s a doll,” he said.
He brought it level with his face.
He recognized the face, the likeness incredible, the wisp of hair, the pink mottled cheeks. It was a face he still saw every day, when he closed his eyes. It was a face he would never forget.
“Oh, Hen,” he said.
She fell into him, burying her face in his chest as sobs shook her body.
He held her tightly.
And then the sprinklers came on.
They didn’t move.
They stayed there for a long time, not noticing as the spray soaked them with every pass.
Jim couldn’t decide if the car was burned-out or just badly rusted. It was dark, with no streetlights burning, and no lights coming from any of the trailers.
The drive had taken him ninety minutes because he’d kept his foot to the floor. It was early, way too early to knock, so he’d decided to sit in his car until the sun came up.
But then he saw someone at the window, and a light come on as one of the doors opened.
He stepped out of the car, surprised by how cool the night air was.
She stood in the doorway, as if she had been expecting him.
He walked slowly, his hands by his side. He thought about reaching for his badge.
“You a friend of Arturo?” she said, quietly.
He stepped onto the creaking veranda. She was beautiful. Truly beautiful.
Her eyes were light, her cheekbones high. Her breasts strained at the robe, her legs were long and tan.
He nodded.
She walked back inside, her short robe barely covering her.
He followed her in.
A lamp burned above the stove. Wood paneling lined every inch of the walls and ceiling, chipped in places but polished to a hazy shine. The couch was covered in plastic, the dining bench too.
She sat at the small table, motioned for him to follow.
“Did he discuss how much?”
Jim shook his head.
“Fifty bucks for an hour, hundred for the night. You have to wear protection, but don’t worry, I have some. No rough stuff.”
“I’m Sergeant Jim Young, Tall Oaks PD,” he said, finally offering her his badge.
She glanced at it, though remained composed.
“Tall Oaks. Harry Monroe,” she said.
He nodded.
She looked away.
“You’re Mia. I spoke to your brother a while back.”
She nodded, pulling her robe tight.
He heard movement in one of the bedrooms.
“My mother.”
She caught his surprise.
“We need the money.”
Mia reached out and fixed the drape, then shuffled a stack of coasters.
“So guys just turn up here, no warning?”
“Sometimes. Arturo normally calls first.”
“He’s a good brother then,” Jim said, immediately regretting it.
“Half-brother.”
He watched her lips as she spoke—they were full, inviting.
“You’re not here to bust me.”
“No.”
“But you show up at this time of night?” she said, glancing at the small clock tacked to the wall above her.
“I have trouble sleeping. I feel like I’m the only one up. Like the whole world is asleep.”
She nodded.
He saw a photograph by the window—her with a young boy.
She followed his eye. “My son. Daniel.”
She placed the coasters down.
“I wanted to ask you about Jared Martin.”
She looked up. “Jared? What about him?”
“How well did you know him?”
She shrugged. “I saw him a couple of times. Maybe four. Why? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“So he’s in Tall Oaks now, with the rich folk?”
He waited for more, but it didn’t come.
“So what was he like?” he asked.
She paused.
“Different. Nice enough. Well spoken. Polite. Not much to tell really. Men like him, they don’t pass through Echo Bay much. And they don’t stick around for girls like me.”
She spoke without a hint of self-pity.
He liked her.
“Do you know where he lived before?”
“No. Maybe he told me, I don’t remember.”
“Did you go to his place?”
She looked at him.
“I’m sorry; I’m just trying to find out more about him.”
“No. I didn’t go to his place. We went out, like people do, to the movies, to dinner. He was more like a friend. Nothing happened. He left town. He didn’t tell me much about himself, and I didn’t ask. He dressed well, he smelled nice. He was a perfect gentleman.”
They heard movement again and she lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. But I think it was a wasted trip. I can’t tell you much about him, because I don’t know much about him.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“How old is he?”
“Four.”
“Nice looking kid.”
She softened.
“Jared ever meet him?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so.
”
“Where is he now?”
“With his father. He spends every other week with his father.”
Jim nodded.
She followed him to the door.
He stepped out, then stood on the veranda, the sun rising behind him.
“Harry Monroe was three,” Jim said.
“That’s not why you’re interested in Jared, surely?”
“If there’s anything else you can tell me . . .? Anything at all?”
She met his eye. “He wouldn’t fuck me. I wanted to. He came to pick me up, I wasn’t wearing much. I don’t usually get turned down. Not ever. He left me standing there. I was upset. I told Arturo that maybe he was gay or something. I think Arturo told the guys, and they gave him shit. I didn’t see him again.”
“Okay,” Jim said, turning to leave.
“Will you tell him sorry? I was embarrassed. It was stupid.”
“Yeah. I’ll tell him.”
Jerry sifted through the drawers, then pulled each one out and emptied the contents onto the floor. He knew it wasn’t there.
He climbed the stairs, tried taking them two at a time but felt a pain in his chest. He’d even searched through the trash, in case she’d thrown it out. He could see pasta sauce on his hand, an old band-aid stuck to his knee. He smelled of garbage.
He walked into her room. It was hot inside, boiling hot.
Jerry shook her.
“Mom,” he said.
He shook her again, this time harder.
“Where is it? The envelope. Did you take out the trash?”
He knew that she hadn’t.
He knew that she’d sent it.
He walked over to the window and pressed his head against it.
24
The Wedding
“Is there something wrong with this car?” Henrietta said.
Roger shook his head, his mirrored Aviators slipping down his nose as he did.
“Nope, nothing wrong.”
“Well, why are we moving so slowly?”
“I thought you’d enjoy a leisurely drive.”
“Look over there.” She pointed to the sidewalk. “Mr. Thompson is actually walking faster than we’re driving.”
He turned his head to look, taking his foot off of the gas as he did.
“Ah, see. He’s power-walking. I thought about doing that.”
Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist Page 21