Total Victim Theory

by Ian Ballard

  “I'll tell you whatever you want to know. . . . But just tell me, do you already have a suspect?”

  “We have a number of leads—”

  “So you're close, close to finding him?”

  “I can’t comment on that. But what I can tell you is that it's very possible that whoever did this knew Lisa. Some of my questions may be aimed at getting a big picture view of your daughter’s life, so that we don't overlook anything.”

  “Ask me whatever you want. I just want to help catch him.” After a moment of silence, she bursts into tears again, “God, why did it have to happen now, when she was so close to meeting Danielle?”

  I recognize that name as the girl from the photo and from Lisa's letter. “Who's Danielle?” I ask, once it sounds as though Jaci’s composed herself again.

  “She’s Lisa’s daughter. She turned ten two weeks ago. Lisa was going to meet her. It was supposed to happen just a few days after, after she was taken.”

  “Why had Lisa never met her daughter? Was Danielle put up for adoption?” I ask.

  “Yeah, a couple of days after she was born.” Her voice sounds calmer now.

  “Why did Lisa decide to do that?”

  There’s a pause. Jaci exhales, as if this is something she doesn’t want to talk about. “There wasn't really much choice in the matter. Lisa wasn’t ready to raise a child.”

  “I don't understand,” I say. “How was there not a choice?”

  “It was Lisa's choice, but she was really sick.” I can hear the hesitation in Jaci's voice. “There's no way she could have taken care of Danielle back then.”

  “What was she sick with?”

  Another long pause. “Is that important?"

  “It could be—I just want to make sure—”

  Jaci interrupts me. “Look, it was a mental health issue. . . .” She trails off.

  “What sort of issue?”

  A heavy sigh. “The doctors had a dozen labels for her. It's been so long I don't remember now.” There's an almost palpable evasiveness in her tone.

  “How was Lisa acting? What was it that made her go to the doctor in the first place?”

  “Look, there was a period during the pregnancy when she was depressed. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s not something we’re proud of. She was in the hospital—the mental institution—when Danielle was born.”

  “What happened that made them think she needed to be in the hospital?” I try to keep the emotion out of my voice.

  “Why do most people who are depressed get put in mental hospitals, Agent Jordan? Because they try to kill themselves. Lisa tried. More than once. I don’t think she wanted to die. She was just in a bad place, and it was a way of reaching out for help.”

  “So she decided to put Danielle up for adoption?” I ask.

  “Of course. Lisa was in there for over a year. She couldn’t very well raise a child when she was locked up, could she?”

  A pause, as I think through the scenario. “Why didn't Danielle's father take custody of her while Lisa was in the hospital?”

  “Lisa told everyone she didn't know who the father was. She said it was a guy she had a one-night stand with and she didn't know his name. That turned out to be a lie. But she didn't tell me the truth till years later. At any rate, the father was never in the picture.”

  “Why did she lie?”

  “Who knows? She was sick. She did a lot of things I didn't understand. She was scared of things. Thought she didn't deserve things. It was part of the whole self-destructive pattern. That's all I can tell you.”

  “And why didn't you and your husband or another family member take custody of Danielle?”

  “That wasn’t possible in our situation.” The impatience in Jaci's voice verges on hostility now.

  “Why wasn't it possible?”

  “There was no family except us.” Jaci pauses. “I don't understand why you're asking this. Does it really matter?”

  “It could. I know these questions are tiresome, but—”

  “Me and my husband weren't granted custody, okay?” Another exhalation. “Is bringing up the past like this and bringing up a bunch of painful stuff really going to help us find whoever did this?”

  “Honestly,” I say, “it might.”

  “I don't see how,” she mumbles.

  “Why weren't you or Lisa's father granted custody?”

  Jaci balks. “We weren't able to because of her father's criminal record.”

  “The criminal record of Lisa's father?” I say to make sure I understood correctly.

  “Yes.”

  This, I'm fairly sure, is a lie. I clearly remember that Jaci was already divorced by the time I dated Lisa. So unless she remarried her ex in short order after Lisa was institutionalized, his criminal record wouldn't have had any bearing on Jaci getting custody. “What was the nature of your husband's criminal record?” I ask.

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” she says, abruptly. “We’ve gone pretty far afield from Lisa, and I’m gonna draw the line at issues of privacy with my family. If you’ve got other questions about Lisa, ask them, but that’s enough about that.”

  I’m silent for a moment, not fully understanding her reaction. I'd press on, but I have the feeling she'd hang up on me if I did. “I understand completely,” I say. “So just a few more questions on a different topic.”

  “No problem,” she says, trying to compose herself.

  “How did it happen that Lisa was just now meeting Danielle?”

  “You’d have to ask the Shermans that. They're the family that adopted her.”

  “It was their decision to limit Lisa's contact?”

  “Of course. It was an open adoption, so Lisa knew who they were and they knew who she was. But when Danielle was younger, they made it clear Lisa wasn’t to be involved in Danielle’s life, at least not with the mental health issues going on. But Lisa was really persistent. She kept writing them, trying to prove to them how much better she was doing. I guess she finally convinced them because a month or so back, they invited her to come out and meet Danielle for the first time on her birthday.”

  “And where do the Shermans live?”

  “In Midland, Texas.”

  My insides are thudding. We're getting close to the main event now. I've been avoiding it, I realize—as if I'm scared of what the answer will be. You get a taste of hope and realize it’s a nice thing to have around.

  And it's a big deal, too. The answer changes everything. The line’s silent. My eyes are closed. Thinking about the dune. How I held her.

  My thoughts have been different ever since that night. Distorted or expanded or something. I don’t know. The desert's messing with time. Making it frozen and upended and opened up all at once. Somehow making everything possible. Making me think things that make no sense. Making me feel things. I wasn't like this before. It's like there's hope or something, in spite of everything. Like all that's been done could just undo itself if we wanted it badly enough. Like I could wake up one day and find she'd never died. Find her asleep on the pillow on a Sunday morning and never remember any of this. Right now, even something that wonderful is still possible

  “Agent Howard?” I hear Jaci’s voice say. “Are you still there?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Lost my train of thought for a second. Just had one more question I was gonna ask. . . .”

  “What’s the question?”

  “I was just going to ask who Danielle’s father was?”

  I already know what she's going to say. And yet it won't be true until I hear the words.

  “Her father was a young lawyer Lisa dated way back when. They were only together a couple of weeks, but I guess she was in love with him. Talked about him in the very last conversation I had with her, the day before she disappeared. I met him a few times. Nice enough guy. She told me later she'd wanted his baby—I don't know if you'd call it fate or instinct or what—but she knew, and by God, she had it. Maybe there's even a little cons
olation in that fact. Even with her gone. Anyway, his name was Jake.”

  Tears well up in my eyes. “Why did she have to leave?” I whisper.

  “I'm sorry . . . I didn't hear you.” Jaci says.

  “Why did she leave him?” I correct myself.

  At first she doesn't respond and I start to think she didn't hear me. But she finally clears her throat. “Lisa kept a lot of things locked inside her. I don't know why she did what she did.” She pauses. “But I know there are people who run away from the things they need or the things that can make them happy. . . . Why do they do that?” She makes a sad little laugh. “Now there's a mystery that might stump even you, Agent Howard.”

  30

  El Paso, 1992

  Maybe it was the boy's fault for planting the notion in Emilia's head. The notion that something was wrong. And maybe that's why she was suddenly suspicious of everything. Finding proof of wicked deeds all around her that yesterday she wouldn't have even noticed. But however it started, she couldn’t just drop it or let the questions hang unanswered in her mind. She had to know if she was sleeping a few rooms down from a . . . a . . . well, that was the question, wasn't it? What’s more, she had to know the truth about what happened to Fernando and Esteban. And her hunch was that the truth, or at least an important part of it, was contained in those two envelopes Gary had just locked up in the study.

  She waited a long time till she felt sure they'd all be asleep. Then she got out of bed and crept on tiptoe across the carpeted floor. Soon she stood in the open doorway, listening. The hall was almost pitch black, but it was far from silent. There was the drip of a faraway faucet and the trickle of water in a toilet basin and the tiny unaccountable creaks of the house settling.

  Her first task was to make it to the kitchen and get Gary's keys. She set out in silent, creeping steps trying not to brush against the wall or bumble into a picture frame. When she was midway down the hall, the central heating clicked on. The prior quiet was replaced by a soft ambient whoosh of air. Pressing on, she soon felt her bare feet touch down on the cool linoleum of the kitchen floor. Her heart was thundering inside her. It was so hard to keep the sound of her breathing quiet.

  She crept over to the drawer next to the fridge and carefully pulled it open. Her fingers maneuvered through the clutter of objects—scissors, tape, paper clips, matchboxes—until she felt the thin body of the small flashlight. She turned it on and directed the beam at the key rack on the fridge, pinpointing Gary’s keys on the second to last prong.

  It was fortunate that he’d left his keys out tonight. He usually kept them with him. On his nightstand. It was nice to get a lucky break. A moment later, the flashlight was off, the keys gripped tightly in her closed fist. Before long, she’d retraced her steps back through the living room, all the way to the study door.

  Holding her breath, she reached out and turned the doorknob—so slowly that the metal inner workings produced not the slightest peep. For a second, standing before the half-opened door, she almost lost her nerve. Almost decided it was crazy and that she should forget the whole thing and go to bed. But then she remembered the tail lights and the odor on Gary's skin, and she knew her fears weren't crazy at all. She had to know what this man—this man she'd loved—had done.

  And so, she stepped inside.

  *

  The first thing Raul noticed when he stepped into the barn was the smell. It was hard to describe, sort of like rotten vegetables or the odor of a cellar. It felt rank and mildewy in his lungs. Like a clammy hand gripped him by the windpipe, trying to suffocate him. He pulled his shirt up over his nose to keep out the unpleasant odor. His father began to scour the floor with the flashlight, while Raul tracked the flitting corridor of light wherever it went. The first few passes of the beam revealed nothing but the gray cement of the barn's floor.

  Slowly they advanced, their footfalls echoing through the dark interior. Seconds later, the beam hit upon a flash of color. Exactly the color Raul didn't want it to be. A red blotch off to the left. Arturo returned the beam to the spot and squatted down for a closer look.

  “Is it blood, Papi?” Raul asked.

  His father reached down and touched it. When he pulled his hand back, his fingertip was red and moist. “Yeah,” his father said.

  “What's it from?”

  “I don't know . . . but it hasn't been here long.”

  Raul's heart beat hard. He was trying to be brave, the way his father was brave. He was trying not to think about where the blood came from.

  His father stood and directed the flashlight around them.

  “Jesus . . .” his father muttered. “It's everywhere.”

  What the roving beam revealed was strange. At least, it didn't look the way Raul imagined spilled blood would look. The red wasn't splattered or gathered in pools, but drawn out in wide, curving streaks. Like the strokes of a thick paintbrush, the kind you'd use to paint a house. And everywhere the beam went, it uncovered more, until it seemed like half the barn was covered with them.

  Raul felt his stomach tightening. “Why is it like that, Papa?”

  There was a pause as if his father was trying to think of an explanation. “I don't know,” he finally said.

  They walked deeper and deeper into the barn. Raul tried to keep from stepping on the streaks of blood, as if they were the cracks on a sidewalk. But there were too many of them, and the blood made a sticky, sickening noise on the bottom of his shoes.

  When they were about halfway into the barn, they came across several segments of yellow rope strewn about on the ground. It was the type Gary and the other hands used when lassoing stray cows and dragging them back to the herd. There were four segments total, all within ten feet of one another. Two of the pieces had small lasso knots tied at one end. The other two pieces were frayed at both ends, as if they'd been cut from the coil with a dull knife.

  The knots and the frayed ends made Raul think the rope had been used to tie someone up and then later cut away. A picture of the two men bound by the wrists and ankles flashed through his mind. He looked at the blood trails, trying to think what they had to do with it. But his brain refused to form a guess.

  Following the trail of rope, his father veered over toward the barn's left hand wall. Raul wasn’t far behind him when he felt his foot collide with something in the dark. He heard something sliding and then a loud clank, as if a hefty metal object had toppled over. Frightened, Raul slunk back, while his father directed the flashlight at the commotion.

  “Ah, Papi,” Raul gasped, seeing what it was.

  “Calma te, hijo.”

  On the ground lay a large wooden-handled ax. To the right was a circular support beam that ran all the way to the ceiling. The ax must have been leaning against the beam when Raul bumped it. His father leaned down, shining the light on the large blade. It was coated with something sticky like snot. But red and purple and black. For a long time, for too long, the beam lingered there. As if his father were stunned by what he saw.

  Tears came to Raul's eyes as he thought about Fernando and Esteban. He tugged at his father's sleeve. “Can we go, Papi?”

  At first his father seemed not to have heard him.

  “I want to go, Papi,” Raul repeated.

  “Si, en un momento, nos vamos,” his father said. But he didn't turn to go. Instead he shone the beam even deeper into the barn. “But where are they?” he muttered to himself.

  Raul's insides were thudding, as if his heart would explode. He couldn’t stop picturing what might have happened to the two men. He wanted to take off running and never look back. He was sure he and his father were about to find them, or whatever was left of them. Already his father was venturing farther in, toward the barn's far wall, an area still lost in darkness beyond the flashlight's reach. The older man stepped forward a few paces, as if straining to see something up ahead. “Qué es esto?” he murmured.

  Raul could just make out the outline of a large but still indistinct object about twenty
yards up ahead. He hustled over to his father's side, trying to make out what it was. His father kept advancing, keeping the beam on whatever it was. The shape, about as wide as a refrigerator, but only half as tall, wasn't just sitting there—it was inset directly into the cement floor. Then he saw that its sides were rounded and made of brick.

  “What is it, Papi?” Raul asked.

  “No sé,” his father said.

  A few paces more put them within arms' length of it. It was open at the top, the curved sides forming a ring with an empty hole in the middle, like a donut. Raul touched the side with his fingertips. The bricks were different colors, and he could see the mortar holding them together. The cement floor came right up and touched the base. His father leaned over the edge and directed the beam into the strange circular structure. “It's a well,” his father said, after peering down into it for a while.

  Now Raul stepped forward and leaned over the edge. He was looking down into a very deep hole that went far below ground level. The flashlight wasn't strong enough to reach the bottom, and the beam dissipated into darkness. And yet still a few glimmers of reflected light found their way back to the young man's eyes. Tiny golden glints of ripples and of waves. The faintest suggestion of a turbulent surface, of water thirty or forty feet down.

  As he listened, he realized he could hear it. Yes, he could just make out a slight, swishing sound. A splashing, as if something—a fish or an animal, or even several of them—were thrashing about far below.

  31

  Mustang

  Before I get off the phone with Jaci, I have her give me the address of Danielle's adoptive parents, Lou and Martha Sherman. They live in Midland, Texas, probably about two hundred miles from here. After I hang up, I stand gazing out the window of my hotel room, watching cars pull in and out of the parking lot. In the background, traffic zips by on the interstate highway. My thoughts are a jumble, running in two directions at once—forward, thinking about the hard-to-fathom notion that I'm now a father, and backward, reflecting on all I've just learned of the last eleven years of Lisa's life.