The River Killings

by Merry Jones

  “Was anything taken?”

  “No!” I snapped. Obviously, he didn’t get it. Whether or not anything was taken wasn’t the point. “You’re sure?”

  “Dammit, Nick. I said nothing was taken.” “Okay.” He came closer. “You need to calm down, baby.” Baby? He reached out, trying to hug me. I resisted, clung to my jar of spaghetti sauce.

  “Come on. Let me hold you.”

  “Not now. I’m cleaning.”

  “Well, stop cleaning. Talk to me.”

  I didn’t plan them, but words flew out of my mouth. “Nick-oh, God, I think—the slave smugglers—they’re watching us. Susan and me. I think that’s who broke in here today. They think we found something or know something.”

  “Hey, wait, back up.” He released me, examining my face. “What? Why would they break in here?”

  “Maybe to scare me? Or to warn you to back off.”

  “Scare you why? Warn me why? About what?”

  “Look around. They didn’t take anything; they just ruined every single picture of you.” I held up the one without a head. “They must have known you were on the case.”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Let me see that.” He studied the picture. “What else did they do?”

  “Every picture of you is like that. Destroyed. Even the one in Molly’s room.”

  “Is that all they did? Ruin pictures of me?”

  “Yes. Well, except for the mug. They spilled coffee.”

  He blinked. “Black? Or with milk?”

  Not funny. “Don’t be cute.”

  “Tell me,” he said. “Was the coffee black?”

  I pictured it. “No. With milk.”

  Nick closed his eyes, rubbed them and released a deep sigh. “Okay.” He seemed peculiarly unconcerned, as if the break-in were no big deal.

  “ ‘Okay?’ What does that mean? You know something? You do, don’t you? Tell me.” I was furious. Steam poured out of my ears. “Who did this? Was it the slave smugglers?”

  “Zoe, settle down. You need to relax.”

  “Relax? Are you crazy? I woke up this morning with the news media on my doorstep. Then an FBI agent followed Susan and me to the deli—”

  “An FBI agent? Who?”

  “And then, two people in costumes cornered us in the park to tell us that the slave traffickers might come after us—” “Wait, what? Slow down.”

  “They said they represented these underground organizations that were fighting the slave smugglers—”

  “Zoe, stop.” Nick pulled over a kitchen chair. “Sit down.” He seated me.

  “Now, breathe. Go on. Take a deep breath.” He tossed two ice cubes in a glass and poured in a finger of Scotch. “Drink this.”

  He sat facing me, and I realized I’d been ranting, hyperventilating. I sipped the Scotch.

  “Start over. Slowly. From the beginning. What happened exactly?”

  I told him, biting my lip, refusing to cry, sitting in my kitchen holding a Scotch on the rocks and a half-empty jar of spaghetti sauce. Why was I so certain that Nick knew something about what had happened? When would I trust this man? Nick watched with an expression of bemused concern until I stopped talking. Then he wrapped me in his arms.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t worry. Not about the break-in. Not about the slave smugglers. Frankly, I doubt they did this. Messing up pictures isn’t what they do. If somebody gets in their way, they just kill them.”

  “Oh, good. That’s reassuring.” I moved out of his embrace.

  “It should be. Because it means the burglars probably weren’t the smugglers.”

  “But maybe they were, Nick. Maybe they don’t want to kill us because they need us for some reason. Maybe they think we have something of theirs, or—”

  “Zoe, slow down.” Half of Nick’s face smirked and he touched my cheek. “Look, I’ll talk to the FBI about Agent Ellis. I’ve been with the agents on the case most of the day, and she wasn’t one of them.”

  “Then why was she following us?”

  “I don’t know. Her name wasn’t mentioned today as part of the team. I want to know who she is, what her role is, why she was hounding you. I’d guess the feds will want to talk to you about the couple who confronted you, but other than that, you and Susan won’t be bothered anymore. I’ll see to it.” He took my hand, the one with the spaghetti sauce in it.

  “How, Nick? How are you going to see to it?” I looked up at him.

  Nick’s pale blue eyes were blank, revealing nothing. No emotion, no information whatsoever. He knew something.

  “You know something. What? Do you know who did this?”

  Nick said nothing, but his eyes shifted almost imperceptibly. Or did they? He wouldn’t tell me, even if he knew. Furious, I pulled my hand from his, not wanting to succumb to his touch, but needing it badly.

  Nick’s voice was low, almost muffled. “Look, I don’t know anything for sure. But it’s possible that the break-in isn’t about the slave traffickers. Maybe it’s personal, against me. I’ve been a cop for a while. Maybe someone I sent away has gotten out and holds a grudge. It could be something like that. The traffickers may have nothing to do with it.”

  “So what are you saying? That it’s just mere coincidence that the break-in happened today?”

  “I don’t know, Zoe. Maybe, maybe not. I’ll find out. Either way, no matter who it is, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” He let go of my hand, but nailed me with his eyes. “I promise. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  “How can you say that? I’ve already been hurt. My home has been defiled.”

  “I know. But you’re fine. And you’re safe. Trust me.”

  Trust him? What was he talking about? Nick had kept secrets from the day we’d met. Not only about his work, but about himself. He’d told me only bits and pieces about his scar, his marriage, his past. He’d said that his face had been scarred when he’d been shot in a domestic dispute, omitting the detail that the dispute had been between himself and his wife. He’d told me that his wife was dead, but not that she’d been killed in that same incident. He’d also neglected to mention that he’d been suspected of murdering her and that the charges had been dropped not because he’d been cleared, but because there hadn’t been sufficient evidence to try the case. No, Nick hadn’t revealed much about himself. I’d found most of that out by chance, on my own. Trusting him wasn’t easy.

  “Nick, if not the traffickers, who do you think it was?”

  “I can’t discuss that. It’s police business. You know I can’t discuss ongoing—”

  “The hell I do,” I began. “This is my home. My life. I am not asking you to tell me; I’m insisting—”

  “Mom?” The screen door flew open and Molly burst in, throwing her schoolbag onto the floor and peering out at the street. “Come here—quick.”

  “Hi, Molls.” I bit my lip, trying to transition into immediate calm. I put down the Scotch and went to the door. Nick turned to greet her. We both wore smiles.

  “Mom, hurry up! Look,” she insisted, peeking outside. “See her? In the car. Right there, behind the truck—”

  “Who?” Nick and I asked together.

  “The woman,” she squinted. “Oh, nuts. You’re too late. She was in the blue car behind the bus. The whole way.” “What woman?” “What whole way?” “From school.” I didn’t follow.

  “She sat on a bench during recess, just watching. It was so creepy. And now, she was just here at our house. I swear. The lady in the blue car followed my bus all the way home.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “I DON’T SEE ANYONE, MOLLY.“ NICK STEPPED OUT THE DOOR onto the porch, looking up and down the street.

  “Molly, wait. Are you saying that woman was watching you at school?”

  “At recess. She was on the bench. When I looked at her, she pretended to be looking at something else, but I could tell.”

  My nerves were flashing red alerts. Oh my God, I thought. Was it the slave traders? The carte
l? Had they followed Molly’s bus to school that morning and sent the woman to watch her? First, a threat against Nick. Now, one against my daughter. What did they want from me?

  Nick came back inside. “If she was there, she’s gone now.” Why was he so damned calm?

  “She followed the bus here, all the way from school.”

  “Wait, Molly.” Nick’s voice was steady, rational. “Are you sure she doesn’t work at school? Maybe she’s a nurse or a secretary. Or somebody’s mom.”

  Or an FBI agent. Or a slave trader.

  “Have you told Mrs. Rutledge about her?” I asked.

  “‘Course not.” Molly rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Rutledge is a butthead.”

  “Molly—”

  “Well, she is a butthead.”

  I looked at Nick; his eyes leveled mine, bounced back to Molly. “What did the woman look like?” he asked.

  Molly shrugged. “She has curly hair. Like mine. And she was wearing blue capri pants.” That was it. A six-year-old’s description. “About how old was she?”

  “She was old.” Molly had no idea. “I think nineteen.”

  “Okay,” Nick said. “Here’s what I want you to do. If that woman shows up there again, tell your teacher. And don’t go near her.”

  “But Mom said I didn’t have to go to school anymore.”

  At the moment, I didn’t want her to go back to school. I didn’t want her to leave my sight. But I couldn’t manage to verbalize that thought.

  “School sucks.” Lacking four front teeth, Molly declared emphatically that thkool thuckth.

  “Language, Molly.” I stifled my urge to smile; no matter how cute they sounded, her words were inappropriate.

  “Well, it does suck.” She turned to face me. “What’s for dinner?”

  Dinner? Oh, Lord. I hadn’t even thought about it. Molly stepped into the kitchen, sniffing, stopping in her tracks.

  “Eeeyuu,” she scowled. “What’s that smell? Bug-killer?”

  The phone rang. I went to answer it, couldn’t find the cordless. “It’s ammonia.”

  “Eeeyuu. It burns my nose. It’s disgusting.” She looked around, wide-eyed. “Mom? Why’s everything out of the refrigerator?”

  “I’m cleaning.” I followed the sound of the phone, searching behind the milk and orange juice, finally locating it under a bunch of tomatoes.

  “Why are you cleaning?” Molly wailed. “It smells sickening!” She ran out of the room holding her nose.

  “Okay, enough.” Nick sighed, running his hands through his hair. “Go get changed. We’re eating out.”

  “Hello?” I picked up the phone, expecting to hear from Susan. But I was too late; the caller had already hung up.

  NINETEEN

  NICK SEEMED PREOCCUPIED THAT NIGHT. AT DINNER, HE WAS mostly silent, not bantering with Molly as usual. Not making leg or foot contact with me under the table. I told myself that it was my imagination. I was exhausted and vulnerable; he was tired and overworked. But when Molly was asleep and we’d stretched out on my bed, I knew for sure that it wasn’t just my imagination. Nick was distracted. He went through the motions of kissing and holding, but he wasn’t there. His body knew what to do and seemed willing to operate on its own, but his touches were hollow, automatic. I finally breathed that I was tired and hinted that we could stop and just go to sleep; he released me too readily, as if relieved. We lay silently, separately, and the phone began to ring. “Damn,” I said.

  “Let the voice mail get it,” he suggested. But I’d already reached for the phone.

  “Zoe . . .” Susan sounded half-dead. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling all afternoon.”

  “I’ve been calling you, too. Where’ve you been?” “At the Roundhouse, filing police reports.” “I thought we were done with that.”

  “No, I wasn’t there about the women. It was about today. After I left you, I got carjacked.”

  What? I sat bolt upright. “Oh, God. Are you okay?”

  Nick lifted himself, resting on an elbow, curious.

  “No, I’m not okay. I’m bruised in places I didn’t know I had. This guy came up to me at the stoplight—”

  “Where?” As if that mattered.

  “Twelfth and Lombard. He stuck a gun in my face.”

  “A gun? Susan. My God. Nick—Susan got carjacked.”

  He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. “Is she okay?”

  “So then he said, ‘Move over, bitch.’ I swear, I thought he was going to shoot me, but another guy was on the other side of the car and he just opened the door, pulled me out and threw me onto the street.”

  “In broad daylight?”

  “In broad daylight. He threw me down and they took off, right through the red light, and there I was, lying on the pavement, blocking traffic like one of those orange cones.”

  “Gosh, Susan.”

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “They threw her onto the street. She was just lying there.” “I’m okay, though. I got checked out at the hospital. And they took a description of the guys—”

  “Was she hurt?” Nick asked. “Is she okay?” I nodded, waving at him to be quiet.

  “But I don’t think it’ll help. All I could remember was the gun.” “Damn, Susan.”

  “And I couldn’t even call for help. My cell phone was in the car. In my purse. They got everything.”

  “Everything?” Absurdly, I thought of her newly purchased bag of condoms.

  “Well, the car. My cash, my phone. My credit cards. I had to stop all of them and that took forever. And the police told me to pad the list of stuff in the car for insurance purposes.”

  Like Officer Bowman, I thought, telling me to think of extra items missing from my house.

  “Maybe they’ll get it back.” I tried to be positive.

  “Actually, I’m hoping they don’t. I don’t want to get in that car ever again, not after those creeps drove it.”

  I knew what she meant. I felt the same way about my house. “Yeah. That’s why I’m dousing everything in cleaning fluids.”

  “Huh?”

  I remembered then that Susan still didn’t know about my break-in. As tired as I was, and even though Nick was lying there, I had to tell her. Her car had been stolen and my house had been burglarized the day after we found the bodies in the river. The traffickers had to be involved. And Susan had to be warned that her house could be next. I’d begun to tell her about my break-in when Nick sighed and got up, pulling on a pair of jeans.

  “I’m getting a coke. Want anything?” he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the room.

  TWENTY

  “MAYBE IT’S ALL JUST A BIZARRE COINCIDENCE.“

  “Your car is stolen, my house is broken into, Nick’s pictures are defiled and Molly says a woman’s following her, all the day after we found nineteen dead slaves in the river. That’s all a coincidence?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Susan, come on.”

  “Okay, say it isn’t. What’s the point? Are they trying to scare us? Fine. We’re scared. What do they get out of our being scared?”

  “What do they think we have or know? What would they be searching for in your car or my house?”

  “Whatever it is, I hope they found it so they’ll leave us alone.”

  “You said we wouldn’t hear from them again, Susan. That they were satisfied we knew nothing.”

  “I said we wouldn’t hear from those two again. I wasn’t car-jacked by the priest and Sonia.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  She hesitated. “Sonia wore a costume, but I doubt she’s a wiry young man underneath.”

  “So, who took your car? The slave smugglers?”

  “Maybe. We drove in it to the river that night; maybe they think we found something and put it in the car. They might have looked for it in your house, too. And since they didn’t find anything, they’ll probably try my house next. Thank God for all my contractors—nobody can get past them.”
>
  “But what are they looking for?”

  Neither of us could think of anything. And we were both wiped out. So, reassuring each other that the next day would be less harrowing, we hung up. Nick still hadn’t come back to the bedroom, so I went downstairs looking for him. The first floor was dark, reeking of cleaning fluids. The kitchen was as we’d left it before we’d gone to dinner: a mess. Stacks of dishes. Bottles and cans, unopened packages of food lay everywhere. Pots and pans, spice jars, dish towels and detergent covered the counters, waiting to be reshelved in newly sterilized cabinets. The sink overflowed with stuff to be thrown out. Looking at it, I shivered, realizing that, earlier in the day, I’d gone a bit berserk.

  But where was Nick? Getting a coke had taken a long time. I checked the living room, the dining room. He wasn’t there. But the light was on in my studio.

  “Nick?” I called. “You in here?”

  I went to the door. Nick sat at my computer clicking away.

  “What are you doing in here?” My tone was sharp. Nick was in my private space. The room I’d set aside just for myself.

  “Just checking my e-mail.” His fingers moved fast. Signing off in a hurry? closing something he didn’t want me to see? Stop it, I told myself. Give the man a break. Why can’t you believe he’s simply checking his e-mail?

  “So, Susan okay?” he asked.

  “Just peachy.” I was surprisingly irritable. Bitchy, actually “As peachy as you?”

  “She was carjacked. How would you expect her to be?” “I don’t know. Susan’s pretty tough.”

  “If you think that, you don’t know her. Susan’s mush.” I walked over to the desk.

  “Okay, whatever.” He pushed a button, minimizing the screen.

  I glared at it, wondering what he didn’t want me to see. “Why didn’t you ask if you could use that?”

  “The computer? Oh . . .” He shrugged. “I didn’t think it would be a problem. Is it?”

  “No. But it’s mine. I don’t use your things without asking.” Actually, I didn’t give a rat’s behind if he used the computer. But he was hiding something; I could tell. My only chance of finding out what it was, was by pulling rank. Still, I sounded like a selfish six-year-old.