by Joy Fielding
How could he sit here? How could any of them sit here? she wondered, looking at the ten other people who huddled together in the tight circle of grief.
The meeting was being held in the pleasant West Orange home of Lloyd and Sandra Michener. They had organized the group three years previously, six months after their own daughter had been stabbed to death on her way home from a movie. Despite Laura’s information about what went on at these get-togethers—they were run along the same lines as Alcoholics Anonymous, she had told Gail—Gail had nonetheless been taken aback by the degree of honesty that she encountered.
“This is Gail and Jack Walton,” Lloyd Michener bad said, introducing them to the others. “Their six-year-old daughter, Cindy, was murdered seven weeks ago.” No gentle euphemisms, no attempt to hide or soften the facts. The people in this room were clearly past gentle euphemisms.
There were Sam and Terri Ellis whose teenage son had been shot and killed during a holdup at their neighborhood 7-Eleven; Leon and Barbara Cooney whose twelve-year-old boy had been stabbed to death by an older boy in a fight during school recess over lunch money; Helen and Steve Gould whose infant daughter had been strangled by a spaced-out babysitter; and Joanne Richmond, whose seventeen-year-old daughter, Charlotte, had been raped and beaten to death in a field four years before.
Gail had silently acknowledged each one, the nervousness in the pit of her stomach building into nausea and then to panic. She had been fighting the urge to turn around and run from the moment she had stepped through the front door.
“We understand what you’re feeling right now,” Lloyd Michener had said, reading her thoughts. “Believe me, we’ve all felt exactly the same way.” He took her hands. “We want you to feel free to say anything at all to us. Our motto is ‘Judge not lest you be judged.’ There’s nothing you can say that can shock us, nothing so disgusting that we haven’t all felt it ourselves. Let us help you, Gail,” he had said, sensing, no, feeling, her reluctance.
He had let go of her hands and turned to Joanne Richmond. “Joanne has offered to tell her story tonight. You don’t have to say anything,” he said, turning back to Gail. “New members don’t usually con tribute anything the first two or three times. But, of course, that’s completely up to you.”
Gail had remained silent throughout his speech, and she remained silent now that Joanne Richmond had finished her story and retrieved her photographs.
“Why don’t we take a break for a few minutes and have some coffee?” Sandra Michener suggested pleasantly.
“I want to go,” Gail told Jack.
“Gail …”
“I mean it, Jack. I have to get out of here, and I’m going to go with you or without you.”
The look in her face told Jack that she would permit no argument. “I’ll go with you,” he said reluctantly.
Gail immediately headed for the hall, and stood waiting by the front door for Jack to join her. She heard him talking to Lloyd Michener, who, once again, seemed to know what was on their minds before they did.
“This isn’t uncommon,” she overheard him telling her husband. “Often, new couples leave before a meeting’s half over. It’s very difficult to sit and listen to all the pain, especially when it strikes so close to home. Try to persuade Gail to come to our next meeting. If she won’t, then I’d strongly advise that you come without her. People are under the mistaken impression that tragedies like this bring people closer together when, in fact, the opposite is true. There’s simply too much guilt for couples to handle by themselves. We’re finding that in marriages where husbands and wives don’t get help, seventy percent end in divorce. Please try to come back. It’s important.”
If Jack answered, it was with a nod only. A few minutes later, he and Gail were in their car heading silently for home.
TEN
On the last morning of her self-imposed sixty-day deadline period, Gail checked in with the police. “It’s me,” she said almost guiltily when Lieutenant Cole answered the phone.
He recognized her voice immediately. “You can always call me, Gail, you know that. How did that meeting go?”
“Fine,” she answered abruptly, not wishing to talk about it. She had already been through similar discussions with Jack, Carol and Laura, all of whom were urging her to attend the next meeting. Gail was adamant that she would not.
“I understand groups like the Micheners’ are a big help to a lot of people,” Richard Cole continued.
“I’m sure they are. Tell me,” she said, cutting him off, “is there anything new today?”
“We’ve come up with a psychological profile of the killer,” he answered.
“What do you mean, ‘a psychological profile’?”
“We’ve formed a mental picture of this man based on the opinions of a number of psychiatrists. Give me a minute, let me find it for you.” Gail heard the rustling of papers. “Here it is.” He paused dramatically. “The general consensus is that the killer is a loner with a possible history of arrests for minor crimes. He’s most likely the product of a broken home, although who isn’t these days? His mother was either too domineering or too weak.”
Either way, Gail noted to herself, it was the mother’s fault.
“He has few, if any, close attachments,” Lieutenant Cole went on, “was a poor student, and has a possible history of cruelty to animals. His father was most likely either abusive or nonexistent.”
“Basically, what you’re telling me is that the killer could be anyone,” Gail said, digesting the information.
“I think we’ve narrowed it down a bit more than that.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, even given all the either-ors, we’re looking for a young man who doesn’t relate well to other people, who’s quiet, a loner, the product of a broken home. My own theory is that he’s a drifter, lives in a rooming house somewhere in the New Jersey area, and sooner or later he’s going to say or do something to trip himself up.”
“What if he’s not in the New Jersey area anymore?”
Lieutenant Cole took several seconds before responding to Gail’s question. When he did, it was with a question of his own. “Do you play bridge?” he asked.
“Bridge? No.”
“My wife and I play once a week. Talk about cutthroats. Well, bridge is a game of strategy as well as luck. And when you’re playing a hand in bridge, and the only way to win that hand is if one particular player has one particular card, then you have to assume when you make your move, that that card is where you want it to be. It’s the same with finding a killer. If we assume that he’s moved to another state, we might as well give up now. Our only hope to catch this man is if he’s still in New Jersey, so we have to play the hand as if that’s where he is. Do you understand?”
“So what exactly are you doing?” Gail asked, choosing to ignore his metaphor, asking the question she had asked at least a hundred times over the last two months.
“We’re keeping our eyes and ears open. We have men in various rooming houses throughout Essex County. We’re keeping tabs on possible suspects. We’re thinking of posting a cash reward for information that would lead to the killer’s capture.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Gail asked.
“You can get lots of rest,” the lieutenant answered with obvious concern. “Get your strength back. Keep going to the meetings and try to put your life back together.”
“I know all that.” Gail tried not to sound as impatient as she felt. She knew he was only trying to help.“
“I meant, is there anything I can do?”
“I know what you meant. But there’s nothing.”
“I feel so helpless.”
“I know you do.”
“You don’t know!”
There was a worried pause. “Try to be patient, Gail. We’re doing all we can.” Gail nodded without speaking. “I’ll call you soon.”
Gail hung up the phone and walked into the den where the photo albums she had been looking thr
ough the night before were lying, still opened, on the dark green leather sofa. She sat down and lifted them into her lap, opening one up, momentarily startled, as she always was, when first confronted with the smiling reminders of her once-happy family. There were pictures of the jolly little group at Halloween, on birthdays, in Florida: Cindy, age two, sitting precariously on a large rock in the ocean during low tide, her nervous mother just out of the camera’s range; Cindy lounging on a chair beside her proud grandfather; Cindy swimming with water wings at the age of three in an otherwise empty pool, swimming unaided a year later, diving from the diving board at the age of five.
Yet for every happy time, Gail could recall a time in which she had spoken too harshly, reacted too quickly. Pictures of Cindy at the piano were particularly difficult for Gail to look at.
Despite her patience in most areas and despite her patience with her other pupils, Gail found that she turned into a virtual tyrant behind the keyboard where her youngest daughter was concerned. When Cindy balked at practicing or spent too much time in front of the piano scratching and fidgeting, Gail’s voice would grow heavy with sarcasm and shrill with annoyance until by the end of the practice period, Gail couldn’t bear the sound of her own voice for another minute and Cindy had been reduced to tears.
Now whenever Gail looked at the piano, she saw Cindy’s bright eyes filled with tears, and so she had stopped looking at the piano. She had informed the parents of her pupils that lessons were temporarily suspended. They had seemed more relieved than disappointed.
“Gail,” a voice said softly from the doorway, “don’t you think it’s time to put the albums away?”
Gail looked up to see her sister, still in her night-gown, walking into the room to sit down beside her. “I yelled at her,” Gail whimpered. “There was no need.” She shook her head in disgust.
“So you yelled at her a couple of times,” Carol said with genuine astonishment. “So you weren’t always the perfect mother. Who is? You’re a human being. You’re going to make mistakes. There are times when you’re going to yell when you shouldn’t. We’re all guilty of that.” Carol paused, looking around her helplessly. “I know I’m going to sound like our mother again, but here goes.” She forced Gail to look at her. “The important thing is that you did the best that you could, that you were the best mother you knew how to be. Christ, I sound like you! Can’t you remember what you said to Jennifer? That the important thing was that she loved Cindy and that Cindy knew it? That she was the best big sister anybody could want? Why can’t you say the same thing to yourself? Why can’t you realize that you were the best mother any little girl could have? Gail, for God’s sake, how many children have the luxury these days of having their mothers at home all day? Cindy was such a lucky, lucky, little girl.” She broke off when she saw the look in Gail’s eyes. “All right, don’t hang me because of semantics. You know what I meant.”
Gail sat on the sofa, the books of photographs still in her lap, open to the last page. She stared at the delicate face of her younger sister, her eyes puffy with lack of sleep. Slowly, with deliberate care, she closed the albums and put both down on the leather cushion beside her. “What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to forget about her? To put away the albums and all my memories and just pretend that she never existed?”
Carol was shaking her head. “No, Gail, no,” she whispered. “Nobody is asking you to forget about Cindy. Just don’t forget about yourself. You have to go on living. You have a family that loves you, a wonderful husband who loves you. We all have to carry on somehow …”
Gail laughed sadly. “You do sound like Mother,” she said softly.
“I knew it,” Carol said, laughing and crying at the same time. “I knew it was going to happen.”
“That’s all right,” Gail cried. “She’s not such a bad person to sound like.” She hugged her sister, then reached over and picked up the leather-bound book of photographs. “You’re right,” she said, crossing to the other side of the room and stacking the photo albums at the far end of the bookshelves before returning to her sister as if possessed of a new strength and purpose. “I’m very lucky to have you,” she said. “But I think it’s time you took your own advice and got on with your life. You’ve put things on hold for long enough because of me.”
Carol nodded. “I have to admit that I’ve been thinking the same thing these last few days.” She looked toward the albums on the bookshelves. “You seem much stronger now. You have Jack and Jennifer. I know you’re going to be all right.” She broke off. “Besides, I’m only a phone call away. If you need me …”
“I’ll call, don’t worry. When do you think you’ll leave?”
“How about just after the July 4 weekend?”
Gail nodded her approval. “I think I’ll go out for a walk,” she said.
“Want me to come with you? It’ll only take me a few minutes to change.”
“No,” Gail told her. “I won’t be long.”
Gail was secretly pleased that Carol felt it was time to return to New York. Not that Gail was tired of her company, far from it. Just that some things were better accomplished alone.
Gail looked around at the small clump of bushes, the well-trodden grass around the dark green bench, and knew that Carol was right. It was time to get on with the present, time to start getting things done. It was time, as Lieutenant Cole had told her earlier, to start putting her life back together.
There was only one way she could do that and that was by finding the man who had tom it apart.
A drifter, the lieutenant had postulated. Gail thought the term a good one to describe herself as well. It contained just the right touch of irony, she decided, as she walked behind the bench and into the trees, no longer a grieving mother searching for memories, but a detective, as it were, ferreting out clues. She knelt on the ground and ran her hand along the soft earth, feeling for the spot where her daughter had fallen, feeling for the weight of the stranger as he fell on top of her. Gail looked toward the bushes, letting her fingers bounce haphazardly along their branches. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking for, but she was determined to keep looking until she found it.
Her eyes traveled back and forth between the bushes and the ground. The police, despite their valiant efforts, had found nothing. All their tips, all their “hot leads,” had led exactly nowhere. She had given them all this time and they hadn’t been able to do anything with it but apologize and advise patience. They would never find the man responsible. She would have to do that herself as she had known all along she would.
It was the end of June. The murder had occurred on April 30. In a few days it would be the Fourth of July. She stood up and took a final look around the small park. Enough time had been wasted.
The sixty days were up.
ELEVEN
Gail spent the better part of the holiday weekend reading every article she could get her hands on concerning deviant sexual behavior. She learned that the world was full of people who liked their sex in groups, in graveyards or on church pews; that others preferred members of their own sex, members of the animal kingdom or members of the dear departed. There were those who were into bondage and those who were into buggery, those who liked to exhibit and those who chose to watch. Some liked to beat; others preferred being beaten.
She learned all the terms. There were the standards with which she was already familiar such as homosexuality, lesbianism and sodomy. There was the masochist, the sadist and the rapist. There were also words like necrophilia, coprophilia and pedophilia.
Pedophilia—sex with children.
The articles confirmed much of what Lieutenant Cole had already told her, that sex offenders were almost exclusively male and usually young, that they hated women or feared them, that they hated themselves and feared their desires. They had often been abused or neglected as children, born to monsters, and so destined to become ones themselves. Small cruelties grew larger with the passage of time. There was little that could
be done to help these people, even less to protect others from them.
Men who preyed on little girls were characteristically quiet and cowardly. They killed more from fear of discovery than from desire to inflict further pain, although there were those demented minds who regarded the kill itself as the ultimate in thrills.
Society’s attitudes toward the more sexually advenure-some had changed through the years, moving from one of strict condemnation to a more casual acceptance. It was now generally assumed that consenting adults could do whatever they wished in the privacy of their own homes. There were private clubs and even public bathhouses to accommodate what was becoming increasingly acceptable social behavior.
Even the hard-core deviant, the sexual psychotic, who didn’t ask but took, who violated and destroyed regardless of age and beyond all reason, was being viewed in a more sympathetic light, no longer held responsible for his actions.
The papers and weekly newsmagazines were full of stories of the gross indecencies of so-called justice. Gail sat on the wing chair in her living room, a newspaper on her lap, a cup of coffee and a stack of magazines at her feet, and mentally reviewed what she had read in the latest editions of Time and Newsweek.
There was the story of a twelve-year-old girl in Canada whose grandfather had been accused of molesting her. The judge had dismissed the case after extensive questioning of the girl revealed that she couldn’t remember the last time she had been to church. The judge reasoned that with no religious upbringing she couldn’t properly understand the seriousness of the oath she would be asked to take, and since she was the prosecutor’s only witness, the case against the accused was dismissed.