Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  Katy Anderson, killing her, the disposal of her body and car made him think long and hard about Tori Hunter. He’d drawn her home to play the game, but that didn’t account for Katy Anderson. Did Katy know something? Was that why she’d been there staring up at him? Was that why she was there? And if she knew something, did she tell Tori?

  He didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. What he did know was that Katy Anderson was once her best friend. Her disappearance would only serve to motivate Tori Hunter more.

  It changed the calculus.

  The investigation would require close monitoring. He had some out of town business to attend to, but when he returned some decisions would need to be made.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I’VE APPLIED MY DETECTING SKILLS AND HAVE OBSERVED THAT IT’S WRITTEN ALL OVER YOUR FACE.”

  “I t’s been three days,” Tori muttered late on Monday afternoon, taking a sip from a lukewarm Diet Coke, sitting on the weathered couch in Cal Lund’s office.

  Braddock sat in a guest chair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees while Steak and Eggleston both leaned against the wall behind him.

  “What did I do, going out to see her that night?” Tori whispered, despondent. “What did I do?”

  “You just went over and saw a friend,” Cal counseled softly. “And tried to help her.”

  “How is what I did helpful? If I didn’t go over there, she doesn’t leave that house. She’d be alive.”

  “Was she really alive, living like she was?” Braddock asked evenly, leaning back in his chair. “As a shut-in, never going out, having everyone think you’re nuts. Is that being alive? Is that living?”

  “What are you saying?” Tori’s eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Only that maybe seeing you, talking to you, observing what you’re doing with your life, hearing you talk about taking a trip brought her to life. She went out to live. She wanted to be able to take that trip.”

  “Then where the hell is she?” Tori replied angrily, not accepting that anything she did was at all helpful or worthwhile. “Where is her car? Where is she? What happened to her?”

  Nobody had any answers.

  “No. No, no, no.” She shook her head angrily. “I went over and stirred up all those bad memories, such that she went out to that damn cross and just like my sister, now she’s gone, too.”

  “Not entirely like Jessie,” Cal noted.

  “This time the car is missing, too,” Braddock added. “Is that an important fact? Who knows, it might be.”

  “What’s important is that there’s someone out there making women disappear,” Tori declared.

  “The question is,” Will Braddock replied, “does he live here or is he just passing through?”

  “He’s here,” Tori assured. “Why else send me the news clipping? Why else take Lash on the twentieth anniversary? Why make Katy disappear?”

  “Is Katy’s disappearance is related to it? It could be unrelated.”

  Tori looked at Braddock severely. “You can’t possibly think they’re unrelated,” she stated derisively.

  Braddock shot a look back at her and had a ready retort, but then quickly thought better of it. She was torn up inside and was lashing out, spoiling for a fight, ready for one if given even the slightest opportunity.

  “I hope he’s passing through,” Cal muttered under his breath after an awkward silence.

  “He’s a local,” Tori answered quickly, daring anyone in the suddenly quiet office to challenge her.

  “You’re probably right,” Lund answered calmly after a moment, having picked up on Braddock’s wise lack of reaction and not taking the bait.

  Braddock was in no mood nor did he any longer possess the energy to continue to discuss, let alone argue the point. Between Lash’s disappearance and now Katy Anderson, he’d been going nearly nonstop for ten days, as had Steak and Eggleston, both looking weary. And to boot, he thought it was seventy-thirty Tori was right. All the disappearances—Jessie, Genevieve and Katy—were connected, and he thought it was ninety-ten the killer was in their midst. “Let’s just say, Special Agent Hunter, that I agree with most of what you’re saying,” he said, and then exhaled while closing his eyes. “But at the moment we’re kind of stuck.”

  “It’s not kind of, it’s we are stuck. We have to get unstuck,” she pressed.

  Braddock snorted. “Yeah, we do, but it isn’t going to happen right this minute. We need to take a break.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I think what Will is saying is that it’s time for a barbeque,” Cal suggested.

  “A barb-a-what?” Tori asked, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

  “For our sanity, we need a night away from the case,” Braddock declared. “I’m firing up the grill and cooking up some steaks. It’s going to be a beautiful night. Bring your spouses and something easy to share and bring your swimsuits. If we have time, maybe we can take the boat out.”

  “Take the boat out? Steaks? Barbeque? How can you have a party at a time like this?” Tori exclaimed, flabbergasted. “How can you just…walk away from this?”

  “One, nobody is walking away from anything. Two, it’s not a party, it’s a mental break with a good meal,” Braddock answered, grabbing his Tahoe keys and then writing his address on a slip of paper. “And three, you said it yourself, we’re stuck. We don’t have a good lead to pursue right now, so grinding away another night isn’t going to do any good. The case isn’t going anywhere. It will be here in the morning.”

  “But, but...”

  Will handed her the slip of paper. “Here’s my address. Come or don’t come. It’s entirely up to you, but we’re—” Braddock waved to the others, “going to get out of here for a night.”

  On his way home Braddock stopped at the local meat market and bought thick ribeye steaks. An hour later, Braddock and his son Quinn talked and relaxed on the deck, letting the grill heat up. Will lamented the fact that a case like this took him away from his ever-growing and maturing eleven-year-old son. Quinn would be tall like his father yet had the soft facial features and light wavy brown hair of his mother. Thankfully, the boy’s grandparents lived a half-mile down the road and five cousins, two of whom were his exact same age and grade, lived not much farther away than that. The three of them were inseparable, whether it was hanging out, going to school or playing baseball or hockey. Will felt blessed that the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins all looked after his son at times like this.

  Steak and his wife Grace arrived first, followed shortly by Cal and his wife, Lucy and then Sheryl Eggleston and her husband Bruce. They all unwound on Braddock’s deck overlooking the calm waters of the bay, drinking beers and asking Quinn about his baseball season and impending trip to Michigan with his grandparents, all while Braddock worked the grill.

  “How long will you be gone?” Bruce Eggleston asked.

  Quinn looked to his dad. “It’s three weeks, right, Dad?”

  “That’s right,” Will replied as he turned up one of the steaks to inspect the char, and then explained, “It’s the one time of the year he gets to see his other set of cousins. It’ll be nonstop time in the lake, fishing, tubing, surfing and go-karting. He’ll miss me for all of five minutes.”

  “Maybe ten,” Quinn replied with an impish grin, and then looked past his father and nodded his head.

  As Braddock turned around, Tori was climbing the deck steps.

  “You said steaks, right?” she asked, stepping up onto the deck, holding up two bottles of wine, handing one to Braddock. “I brought red.”

  “And good red,” Braddock answered with an approving nod. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Thank you for the invitation.”

  Tori took the wine inside and put it on the kitchen’s center island. She took a quick look around Braddock’s lake home, a warmly furnished two-story log A-frame with a lofted second level and a walkout basement that sat on a picturesque treed lot on t
he southwest side of the lake overlooking what she recalled was Murphy Bay. “It’s…beautiful out here,” she remarked as she stepped back out onto the deck. “This is really nice, Detective Braddock.”

  “Thank you,” he replied. “We’ll save the wine for dinner. In the meantime, can I offer you a cold beer?”

  “Yes, please.”

  A half-hour later the steaks were prepared, everyone made up a plate and sat around the long deck table under the expansive umbrella and dined. The case was not mentioned once as everyone relaxed and loosened up, even Tori, who sat next to Lucy Lund and they started going down memory lane. After the plates were cleared and everyone had a fresh beer or glass of wine and a seat on the deck, Steak gazed out to the lake and remarked, “The water is absolute glass, not a ripple.”

  Braddock took the hint. “Who’s up for a ski?”

  Steak, Eggleston and their spouses instantly agreed. The Lund’s were eager to get in the boat and watch.

  “Tori, you want to ski?” Braddock asked. He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “Come on,” he goaded. “You don’t see nights like this in New York City, I know.”

  “I haven’t waterskied in twenty years. I doubt I can even get up.”

  “One, you’re an athlete, you’ll get up. Two, use two skis,” Braddock answered. “Come on, Tori, live a little,” he goaded good-naturedly before lowering his voice. “And trust me, you need to live a little.”

  “But…I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” she replied, this time looking curiously out to the placid water.

  Braddock grinned broadly. He won. “Come with me,” he replied, waving for Tori to follow him. He led her down into the basement where a closet next to the guest bathroom held two shelves full of men’s and women’s swimsuits. “I guarantee you there’s a one-piece in there that will fit you.”

  Forty minutes later Tori looked nervously out to the lake as a soaking wet Braddock lifted himself up onto the back of the boat and unbuckled his lifejacket, having just finished his ski run. Everyone else had taken their turn.

  “Only one person left,” Will noted as he dried himself off before sitting back down behind the wheel and taking a sip of his beer and then looking over to a pensive Tori with a teasing grin. “It’s the moment of truth, Special Agent Hunter. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “This could be ugly.” Tori replied as she stood up, tugged on the bottom of the slightly loose-fitting white one-piece suit she was wearing and then pulled on a dry life jacket. She stepped onto the back deck of the boat and jumped feet first into lake.

  The splash, the taste, the smell and feel of the warm water transported her back in time. She’d forgotten how good midsummer refreshing lake water could feel. Braddock expertly tossed her the two water skis. Quickly, she slipped her feet into the boots for the skis before grabbing the ski rope handle floating next to her. She leaned back in the water, her ski tips straight up, the rope strung between them. Braddock straightened the boat out, easing the rope tight and dragging her lightly, waiting for her to call out.

  You did this for years as a kid, and you were good at it, Tori told herself. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered before yelling, “Hit it!”

  Braddock gunned the in-board engine and she popped right up. He took her on a long straight run paralleling the south shoreline of the bay. He looked back and circled his arm in the air, the signal he was going to turn around. Surprising even herself, before he started the turn Tori pulled her foot out of the left ski, slipped it into the back boot on the right ski. She could hear the whistles and cheers.

  She took a long slalom run while everyone in the boat clapped and yelled encouragement. As the boat sliced through the flat surface, she became more and more aggressive with her turns, leaning harder and digging in more on each turn, even sneaking a peek back to see the rooster tail she was shooting out of the water.

  And then it happened.

  She cut across and then jumped the far wake. But as she landed her weight got too far forward. The ski’s front tip suddenly submerged, propelling her body forward, yanking her feet out the ski’s boots. The rope handle flying away, she violently cartwheeled twice along the surface before slamming facedown into the water.

  “Ohh,” she groaned, as she rolled onto her back, “wipeout.”

  She smiled and floated on her back, letting the wonderful stinging feeling of a colossal yard sale wipeout slowly recede from her body while Braddock drove back to retrieve the ski she’d dropped.

  After docking the boat, Braddock started a fire in the pit down by the lake while everyone else took turns going inside to dry off and change. Tori was the last to go inside, taking a lengthy shower to wash the lake water off in the spare bathroom. Once changed, she came back out to find only Braddock at the roaring fire, sipping from a glass of wine.

  “Where did everyone go?”

  “Home,” Braddock answered, looking up from the chair. “They were all tired.”

  “I see.”

  “You know, you brought a very nice bottle of wine,” he complimented. “Can I pour you one, help soothe the sting of that wipeout?”

  “Sure,” Tori replied, sitting down in the big green Adirondack chair next to Braddock while he poured her a glass of wine. “And by the way, that wipeout felt so awesome.”

  “You skied well there, too. Those were some pretty deep cuts.”

  “I grew up on this lake, I waterskied all the time. I guess it was like riding a bike,” she replied, taking a drink of her wine before turning to him. “I still can’t believe you had a swimsuit that fit me. And it was a Hayes Limited, a really nice swimsuit.”

  “It was Meghan’s.”

  “Who’s Meghan?”

  “My late wife.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”

  “It’s okay, Tori,” Braddock replied softly. “It’s okay. She died six years ago. Brain tumor, glioblastoma. That was one of her swimsuits—she actually designed it.”

  Tori did a double take. “Wait, wait a minute. Meghan. Meghan Hayes? Meghan Hayes was your wife?”

  “You knew Meghan?” Braddock asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Not really. She was four years older than me, but I sure knew who she was and followed her career. In case you haven’t noticed, I kind of like clothes. Nice clothes.”

  “That has not escaped my attention.”

  “And now I understand how you recognize the brands. I loved her designs and not just because she was from Manchester.” Tori replied. “She did pretty well for herself.”

  “She was really starting to when she died.”

  “How’d you end up back here?”

  “I didn’t have any family, really—my parents were long gone. I was an only child and raising a five-year-old son as a single parent in New York City as a police detective, with the hours and all that, wasn’t an easy thing.”

  “I don’t imagine it was.”

  “Meghan’s family, her parents, her brother and one of her sisters were here. Quinn’s cousins were here, and I’d always loved Manchester and especially the lake when we’d visit in the summer. Roger Hayes, Meghan’s dad, said he was good friends with Cal. I think Roger was pretty motivated to have Quinn come live here.”

  “And you, too.”

  “Well, we’re a package deal,” Braddock answered with a wry smile. “Anyway, Cal called a week later. We talked for a couple of hours. Two days later he offered me a job. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “How did you meet Meghan?”

  “Oh, that’s a great story.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Tori replied as she sipped her wine.

  “Well, there was this party in Manhattan, the Upper East Side. A college buddy of mine, who could talk his way into or out of anything, got us into a shindig in this swanky high-rise. It was hilarious, the minute we walked in everyone’s eyes in there said who let the riff-raff in.”

  Tori laughed.

  “We were working class college kids from Long Isl
and and at this party there were a lot of pretentious moneyed trust fund types hanging around.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “What I always did. I found the beer, or in this case, the bar. There was a keg, a little to my surprise, and to my even greater astonishment nobody was charging.”

  “I don’t imagine on the Upper East Side someone’s collecting five bucks for a glass.”

  “Uh no,” Braddock replied with a grin. “Anyway, I hung out there, because sooner or later everyone comes for a beer and that’s how you meet people at a party.”

  “You mean girls.”

  “Is there any other reason to go to a party?” Braddock answered, toasting Tori’s glass. “And sure enough, this pretty little brunette with big beautiful brown eyes strolled up, smiled and asked for a refill on her beer.”

  “Meghan.”

  Braddock nodded. “Meghan. I filled her glass and we just started talking. Here I was this tall, goofball ex-basketball player at LIU essentially majoring in beer drinking and she was this pretty, stylish fashionista studying at the Parsons School of Design. Two more opposite people you could not find.”

  “Yet you connected.”

  “I don’t know what it was, but we talked off and on for like two or three hours. So, as the end of the night approached, I started calculating my odds with her.”

  “Men fear rejection.”

  “Everyone fears rejection. But yeah, that runs through your head. And it wasn’t like we were at some LIU party where if I had doubts, I knew I’d see the girl on campus and could let it play out. But there, in that moment, I had to ask or I’d never see her again. So, I said to myself, what was the worst thing that could happen? I asked her out.”

  “And she said yes.”

  Braddock smiled. “Yup, she said yes.”

  “Opposites attract.”

  “We sure proved that theory. We got married three years later, the New York City cop and the fashion designer. It could have been a sitcom. It often was. We laughed a lot. We didn’t have a long run, but man,” Braddock wistfully shook his head, “we sure had a good one and had ourselves a boy. I couldn’t have asked for more.”