Twin Offerings

by Ruth Parker

  It had taken Laurel a long time to forgive her parents. They just couldn’t pick up the pieces. They couldn’t love her the same way someone with a severed spinal column couldn’t walk. All through high school there had been a dark and thrashing storm of rage inside her. What about me? she wanted to constantly scream—and on more than one occasion, she did. Her mother had only responded, “I’m sorry.” That had felt worse than anything.

  In the spare bedroom, she slid open the door of the closet. There was a stack of boxes; she moved the top three and set them on the bed. She knelt on the floor, opening the bottom box. The box she kept buried in the closet like a grinning skeleton. She unfolded the flaps and looked inside. She pawed through the box; it contained various mementos and baubles from her childhood. Every item had a memory that Laurel couldn’t afford to relive. She was here for one thing and one thing only.

  She found it at the bottom of the box and crammed it into her pocket. She’d never shown anyone, not in her entire life. She only hoped it would be worth it—that it would help the investigation—because once Fletcher and Underwood saw it, she was going to be in a shitload of trouble.

  Eight

  This wasn’t going to go well. The Interview Room had definitely turned into an Interrogation Room. The camcorder was in the corner, looming over them all like a black, humming idol. An audio recorder was sitting in the middle of the table, standing out like a sore thumb.

  That wasn’t even the worst part.

  Fletcher’s dad had shown up, as if his presence was a foregone conclusion. His thinning hair was slicked down with so much pomade that Fletcher could still see the comb-tracks etched on his scalp. He looked much older than his sixty-eight years, but the job had taken its toll on him. Except his eyes. They remained alert and keen.

  It was seven-thirty and Laurel hadn’t shown yet. Fletcher was starting to get worried. Had she just decided not to come—or had something worse happened? He shouldn’t have let her go alone.

  Underwood was pacing, sticking his head out of the room and looking down the hallway roughly every ninety seconds. His clothes were rumpled from the long day, yellowing sweat stains spreading under his arms despite the cold weather.

  At seven forty-five, Laurel came into the interrogation room, looking like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Maybe she hadn’t.

  “What did you bring us that was so important you kept us waiting for a half hour?” Underwood said, flipping on the recorder and not bothering to ask.

  “Nice to see you’re just sitting here, waiting for me to do your job for you,” she said. Fletcher couldn’t help a little smirk when he heard the fire in her voice. She tossed a battered old Polaroid picture across the table. It sliced through the air like a throwing star and landed on Underwood’s chest.

  “What’s this?” he said. He picked it up and looked at it. “Shit, should I be wearing gloves?”

  “No,” Laurel said. “The only fingerprints on it would be mine and my sister’s.” Underwood gawked at the Polaroid. Fletcher wanted to snatch it out of Underwood’s smooth little hands, but he willed himself to stay quietly seated, waiting his turn. The old sheriff, however, had no such compunctions.

  “What the hell is it?” his dad said and yanked the picture from Underwood’s grip. Fletcher watched his dad as he looked at the picture. “Christ, girl. You better start at the beginning and go slow.”

  The old sheriff handed Fletcher the picture. It was a casual shot, either of Laurel or her sister—he couldn’t tell. The girl was twelve, pretty, smile full of teeth. She was wearing a navy blue dress with a rounded peter pan collar, white gloves, and matching white hair ribbon. She was seated at a small folding table. On the table was a teapot and two teacups. The picture was too small and blurry to see the details, but Fletcher was willing to bet that there was a ringlet of dusky orange roses circling the teapot and the cups.

  Underwood looked confused, narrowing his beady eyes as if that would help squeeze some knowledge out of his brain. Fletcher looked at his dad, who had taken off his glasses and was pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Jesus, Laurel,” the old sheriff said. Fletcher knew his father well enough to know what was coming next; the old man had a temper. He let his questions spew in a quick, angry succession: “What the fuck is this? Is this what I think it is? Why in the hell have you been holding on to this? Don’t you realize how stupid it was to hide this from us?”

  “Dad,” Fletcher said, trying to keep his voice steady and calm. Looking at Laurel, he saw nothing but a scared girl who knew she was about to get in trouble. “Let’s stick to the facts. Maybe we can learn something from this picture.”

  “I want to learn why this is the first time I’ve ever seen the damned thing. Shit, girl, you said he grabbed your sister off the street. What the fuck happened?”

  Throughout the yelling, Laurel was sitting at the table, her hands clasped on the table top. Fletcher noticed that her fingers were shaking as she struggled to hold onto her hands and keep them still. Her face was a blank mask, her eyes glassy and unfocused. She was breathing through her nose slowly and loudly in an attempt to maintain control.

  “Laurel,” Fletcher said gently. “Can you start at the beginning?”

  She took a big breath. “Maybe,” she said.

  “Oh fuck your maybe,” Underwood said. He’d been quietly waiting so far, but whatever patience he had was now gone. “We got two dead girls—three if you want to include your sister—and I for one would like to catch the bastard. So let’s cut the shit. Laurel, you need to tell us everything from A to Z. If not—if you hold anything back—I’m going to personally have you indicted for evidence tampering. You’ll get shit-canned as fast as you can say ‘maybe’ one more time. You’ll get two-to-five in prison if someone wants to be an asshole and press the issue—and guess who’s going to want to press the issue?”

  “Detective,” Fletcher started to say.

  “Don’t tell me to lighten up,” Underwood rounded on Fletcher. “Your shrinky-dink psychobabble isn’t going to work here.”

  “We went easy on her when she was a kid,” the old sheriff said. “And she bullshit all of us. Time to play hardball.” To Laurel he said: “You better start talking. And don’t stop until you convince us not to file charges on you.”

  Laurel didn’t speak for a long time. She knew they’d be angry. It was okay—she deserved it. Would her sister still be alive if she’d told them everything fifteen years ago? That was the question that had driven her right up to the brink of insanity—so close she could feel the seductive shape of it.

  “We were walking to school,” she said finally. She couldn’t look up. That fucking camera in the corner. It was so much like the camera that he had in the empty office building. “We were on Western, broad daylight, eight o’clock in the morning.” Western was a main street, three lanes in both directions, businesses and houses on either side. “A car pulled up alongside us. It was a white station wagon. It was newer, I guess. Not all beat up and dented. The inside was nice and clean. Smelled nice.”

  “Go on, Laurel,” Fletcher said. He was taking notes. She hated the idea that he was taking notes, like she was a monkey in a cage at the zoo. He was probably getting all sorts of juicy ideas for his next book. But his voice was kind, his eyes thoughtful. Just some fancy-pants asshole from the city, she thought. Going to be out of here in a week or two, writing this up as a case study. I’ll probably be nothing more than Witness #1. A footnote in some article.

  “He pulled up next to us,” she continued. “He said, ‘Look out, here comes double trouble.’ We stopped. He told us that he was a photographer for a New York ad agency and he was looking for twin girls for his upcoming photo shoot. He said that we had just the right look. If we wanted, he’d be able to take a few quick pictures and send them off to the ad agency. If they approved the photos, then he could get all the proper forms for our parents to sign and then the agency would pay for our whole family to fly to New York for a
photo shoot.”

  “Aw hell,” the old sheriff said.

  “We got in his car,” Laurel said. “I know it was stupid, but we were only twelve. Even then, we sorta knew better, but we were also hoping for the best. Bad things wouldn’t happen to us. He had a nice car, a nice suit on. He even had a tripod and camera bag in the front seat.”

  “It’s okay,” Fletcher said. He was writing feverishly, but he had stopped to look at her. Those dark eyes of his looked like the wheels were spinning, like he was getting a hundred ideas and trying to process all of them. “That’s a common ruse that predators use. It hits all the right notes that a young girl wants to hear.”

  “Fuck you,” Laurel said. It just popped out; she couldn’t help it. Just when she thought that he might have the slightest bit of empathy—he gave her a sickening load of glib and insincere pity. “I know it’s a common ruse. That’s why we were so damned stupid to fall for it.”

  “Get to the point,” Underwood said. He was pursing his lips into a tight, grim line slashed across his face. Laurel didn’t give two shits about Underwood or his bogus threats.

  “We got in his car,” she said, trying her best to ignore the three pompous jerks in this small, hot room with her. Fletcher had been a comfort to her during the autopsy, but that must have been a fluke. Now, he was just another interrogator, asking questions and placing blame. She did enough of that on her own; she didn’t need them to do it. “He drove us somewhere, I don’t really know.”

  “He drove you somewhere,” Underwood said. He was twirling his pen absently between his fingers.

  “I don’t know,” Laurel said. “I didn’t pay attention to the streets or what direction he was going.”

  “Kids don’t pay attention to that stuff,” Fletcher said. Laurel did not appreciate how he was trying to get back in her good graces… but she did appreciate how he was trying to deflect Underwood, who was a snarky prick if there ever was one.

  “Where did he take you?” the old sheriff said. At least he seemed to have gotten over his shock and was absorbed in getting the facts.

  “Somewhere,” Underwood said, in a mocking tone. Laurel ignored him.

  “It was an office,” she said. “Looking back, I think it was an office for rent. It was empty. When we got there, he had to set up all his equipment. He had big floodlights, different cameras, a big metal frame with a thick gray backdrop.” She paused.

  She was coming to the heart of the matter. She could forgive herself for being a naive twelve-year-old girl, wanting to take her whole family to New York for a fashion magazine photo shoot.

  But she could never forgive herself for what she’d done after that…

  “While he set things up, he gave us the outfits to wear. The blue dresses and the white hair ribbons and white gloves. He told us to paint our nails and put on perfume—that’s why I recognized the smell today. We went into the bathroom to change. It was inside the office. We came out and he had the tea set on the table. There was a Polaroid camera too; he said we could take each other’s pictures while he finished setting up.”

  “Is this a picture of you or of Leigh?” Fletcher asked.

  “It’s Leigh,” she said. “I took it while we were waiting around.”

  “The guy,” the old sheriff said. “Did he do anything sexual? Your original statement said he didn’t…” he trailed off, giving her the opportunity to elaborate.

  “He touched us a lot,” Laurel said. “I remember that. But just our shoulders, arms, whatever. Not sexual.” Was it her imagination, or did Fletcher visibly relax when she said that?

  “How did you get away?” Underwood said. “If you were in this office building, how did you get away when your sister stayed behind?”

  The heart of the matter. She hoped that Fletcher wouldn’t be able to tell she was lying.

  “I went to the bathroom,” she said. “When I came back out, they were gone. All the equipment, the car, everything.”

  “How long were you in the bathroom?” Underwood asked.

  “It was a number-two,” Laurel said. “Then I was fussing over my hair and my dress and everything. I was probably in there a long time, looking at myself in the mirror, trying to look my best. When I came out, I was confused. I didn’t know where they went. I checked the whole office, but it wasn’t that big, just a couple rooms.”

  “What time was this?” the old sheriff asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We were walking to school around eight in the morning. We didn’t drive that far to the office. We were there maybe an hour. It’s hard to say. By this time it was probably nine-thirty or ten in the morning; but that’s just a guess.”

  “How did you get to school?” Underwood asked. “If you didn’t know where you were.”

  “When I was sure they were gone, I changed my clothes and stuffed the dress into a trashcan. Then I just wandered around,” she said. “Until I found a street that I knew.” At least that part was true.

  Underwood looked at the old sheriff. It seemed like they’d run out of questions, except the only real question that they wanted answered.

  “If you’d only told us at the time,” the Old Sheriff said. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Scared,” she said. “Afraid my parents would be mad at me.” That was the truth too. If she’d told them what had really happened, the apathy her parents had towards her would have been raw hostility and hate.

  Which was what Laurel felt for herself when she let herself think about what she’d done that day. Which was why she would never tell anyone the real truth.

  Not now, not ever.

  Nine

  The Facebook idea had been excellent. So many girls had responded. The phony email address that he’d set up had gotten over a thousand responses. He was easily able to reject many of them immediately, as the girls weren’t right. He had selected a few to follow up on; photos didn’t often show a girl’s true beauty. Then he heard the ping of his email and opened it and saw the pictures of Melissa and Madison.

  They were perfect. Really, truly perfect. When he looked at their pictures, he realized just how wrong he’d been with the other girls.

  They’d given him their address along with their photographs, so he was able to watch them for the last few days. They got rides to school in the morning, and most days after school their grandmother picked them up, but on Tuesdays, the school got out early at noon and the girls walked home.

  He waited in his car on the corner of their street, keeping his spotting scope trained on the opposite end of the street. Sure enough, at twelve-thirty, he saw two girls with wild curly hair round the corner and start their way up the street towards him. He started his car and drove around the block so he could approach them from the other end of the street. He turned the corner as they had turned and he slowly gained on them from behind. His photo equipment was prominently displayed in the front seat, the tripod legs sticking up in the air. He rolled down the driver side window.

  “Madison and Melissa?” he asked. They stared at him suspiciously, but they stopped walking and turned to face him.

  “What?” one of the girls asked.

  “I knew it was you two. I recognized you from your contest entry. I’m from Girl’s Wire Magazine. I guess I spoiled the surprise, but you two won the modeling contest.”

  “We did?” one of the girls asked him.

  “I told you we’d win,” the other girl said. She jumped up and pumped her arms in a salute of victory.

  “I was coming down to give you the good news,” he said.

  “When is the photo shoot?” the jumping girl asked.

  “Today, I hope,” he said. “That’s why I came down to meet you. I’m leaving Portland early tomorrow morning for another article and I’ll probably be gone at least two weeks. If we want this to be in the Mother’s Day issue, we gotta shoot today. I was going to have your parents sign the release forms, then we could all go to the studio.”

  The girls looked nervously a
t each other. “Our mom’s not home until four or four-thirty today,” one of the girls said. Her sister shot her a serious look. That girl was the one he’d have to look out for. She was the suspicious one.

  “Four-thirty,” he said in a skeptical tone. “That’s almost four hours from now. The hair and make-up lady is only there until four o’clock,” he said, trailing off, pretending to think of a solution.

  The girls were arguing quietly amongst themselves. “The studio isn’t that far away,” he said. “Just a few miles away, by the big rock-climbing arena, you know where that is? I can take you there right now and we’ll get back at about four, just in time for your mom to sign the papers. How about that?”

  “That’s perfect,” the girl said. Her suspicious sister furrowed her eyebrows. “Come on,” she said to her sister, “That’s not far away. We want the make-up lady to be there, don’t we? And we’ll be back in time for Mom.” She was dragging her suspicious sister into the backseat. Doing my job for me, he thought.

  Madison climbed into the backseat after her sister. She didn’t think this was a good idea, but Melissa insisted. If they missed out on the opportunity to be in a real magazine doing a real fashion shoot, Melissa would be mad at her forever. Madison wanted to at least let their mom or grandma know where they were going. That was the rule if they went anywhere after school; they had to call or text message Mom or Dad or Grandma. Melissa already had her phone out, but she was probably texting all of her friends, letting them know that they’d won the contest.

  Going from the cold outdoors to the hot car was making Madison sweat. It seemed so hot inside. Madison took off her jacket; she didn’t want to be all gross for the pictures. Her hair got all weird when she was hot and sweaty. Hopefully the make-up lady could do her hair nicely. It was always hard for her to do her hair.

  Madison took out her phone. She would text Mom. So what if it would ruin the surprise? They had to have her sign the release forms, which was going to ruin the surprise anyway. She unlocked the screen and was about to open up a new text message when the photographer reached his arm back and held out a cold bottle of Gatorade.