Whisper to Me

by Nick Lake

  You ran your fingers over the frets. Then you bent your head so I couldn’t see your face, and started to play. Just notes at first, then runs and arpeggios—I think that’s what they’re called? And scales, I guess. Then you flowed into something I recognized—the Beach Boys. “God Only Knows.” You hummed along.

  And here’s the thing: you were amazing. Technically, of course. But also, the instrument, it was like it breathed with you. Like you made it live, made it want to pour out its own song. You were impressive at the pier, when you were playing what people called out, on the electric organ, but when you played that ukulele … it was like I was hearing your soul.

  Okay, now I’m the one being poetic and sickly.

  Anyway.

  As you hummed, I don’t know, I guess it was that faulty inhibition thing again, but I began to sing. I knew all the words. I sang the first verse, and then the chorus. You looked up at me, and I stopped, embarrassed.

  You put aside the ukulele. “Hey,” you said. “Don’t go all shy on me. Keep singing. I like hearing your voice.”

  I don’t like hearing my voice, I thought. I shut up.

  “Oh, come on,” you said. “You have a beautiful voice.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m barely in tune.”

  A pause. “Yeah, okay, you don’t. But I still like to hear you sing.”

  I made my eyes mock-wide. “Asshole! You don’t think I have a beautiful voice?”

  “I—I just wanted to be honest with you; I didn’t want to give you some romantic bull**** and … ugh, I don’t think before I speak sometimes. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I was messing with you,” I said, elbowing you.

  You smiled, relieved.

  “Anyway,” I said, “you’re incredible. You really should be in a band. Or, I don’t know, uploading videos on YouTube.” You were looking at me skeptically. “I’m serious! You have talent.”

  You shook your head. “Can’t.”

  “Oh please. I saw the look on your face when you were playing. You love it.”

  “I do.”

  “So do it. Go to college or whatever, but do the music thing as well.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then tell me.”

  You took a long breath. “My mom played. She was actually kind of a star in the seventies. I mean, not a big star. But she supported Simon & Garfunkel. Kind of a guitar, singing, folk kind of thing. She gave it up, the performing, when she met my dad. He was a mechanic in a small New Jersey town. It was like the most unlikely romance, you know? Anyway. She got me into it. When she died … I stopped playing. At home anyway.” Your hand went to your chest as you said all this, and I realized something, something about the necklace I had seen around your neck.

  “That’s her necklace, right?”

  You looked at me, surprised. “Right.”

  You took your hand away, very self-consciously. Laid it on the white tiles by the pool.

  “So, you stopped playing music at home because it was too painful?”

  “No.”

  I thought for a moment. “Oh. Your dad doesn’t like it? It reminds him of her, that kind of thing?”

  “Uh-huh. He cleared out all the instruments. Gave them to Goodwill.”

  “So you swim instead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you don’t love swimming. You don’t even like it that much.”

  You sighed. “No, not really.”

  “Come on,” I said. “You can’t let your dad take away something you love. And when he’s not there … I mean, you could still—”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is. Tell him how you feel. Tell him you—”

  You raised a hand—like, This conversation is over. Then you forced a smile. “But me and you, we can come here again, if you like? I’ll play, you sing. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said.

  Then your radio crackled. “714, come in.”

  “Time’s up,” you said. “I’ll close my eyes while you get out.”

  I’m telling you all this, even though you were there, for two reasons.

  1. The whole thing with you and swimming and music? That’s going to come up again. When I see your dad, later in the story. I want you to understand it all from my point of view. I want you to see why I did the things I did. I told you: I want you to forgive me.

  2. I didn’t say it then; I mean I would have been too embarrassed, but that day on the roof of the Flamingo Motel … that was the best day of my life, since my parents took me to Disney World for my eighth birthday. I think it was the day I fell for you, properly. It was like a game of tag. You tagged me—and after that I had no choice but to follow you. Anyway. I thought I would write about it. Because it’s all pretty dark from here on in.

  Hey!

  I said two reasons and I actually gave two reasons!

  Dr. Lewis had been crying.

  I was less surprised than I was by Dr. Rezwari, but still, it was pretty remarkable. I mean, he wasn’t her family, he wasn’t a friend—he was a psychologist. But four days after Paris had disappeared he was still crying.

  We didn’t really talk about me, we just talked about Paris, tried to convince each other she was still alive. I didn’t tell him about what you and I were doing, about our private investigation. I thought he would probably tell me not to do it. Which would have been good advice.

  DR. LEWIS: And how are you? Generally?

  ME: Stuff is bad with my dad. I’m kind of grounded. Actually, I’m going to get in so much trouble for coming here this evening. If he gets back early anyway. He may not. He probably won’t.

  DR. LEWIS: You still haven’t told your father about coming here?

  ME: No.

  DR. LEWIS: Okay. Anyone else who is helping you?

  ME: There’s a boy. When he’s there, the voice goes quiet.

  DR. LEWIS: That sounds good, for you.

  ME: Yes.

  DR. LEWIS: But when he’s not there …

  THE VOICE: Paris is dead and rotting. Fish are eating her fingers.

  ME: The voice comes back.

  DR. LEWIS: On the topic of people helping you: You’re speaking to Dr. Rezwari? Making sure your medication dosage is correct?

  ME: Hmm.

  DR. LEWIS: She hasn’t written me. I thought she might. I sent her some notes but—

  ME: You sent her notes?

  DR. LEWIS: Yes. Sure. Standard procedure.

  ME: ****.

  DR. LEWIS: You have told her about me?

  ME: Uh, yeah. Yeah. But … you didn’t tell her anything … private we have talked about?

  DR. LEWIS: About your mother?

  ME: Yeah.

  DR. LEWIS: No. The bare facts only. That we were talking.

  ME: Okay.

  Okay, okay. That wasn’t so bad.

  Anyway.

  The conversation went on.

  ME: Blah.

  DR. LEWIS: Blah blah.

  Etc., etc., etc.

  At the end of the half hour, I didn’t stand up. “I want to stay for group,” I said.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Dr. Lewis. “There are a lot of people here who loved Paris. Love Paris.”

  “Yeah,” I said, though that wasn’t why I wanted to stay. I was out of leads, and Dwight was the only one who might have some more information on Paris. I wanted to grab him once group was over.

  But Dwight wasn’t first that day, and I worried that he wasn’t going to come. Five people, maybe, turned up, poured themselves coffee into their plastic cups and then sat down on plastic chairs in the circle.

  He’s not coming, he’s not—

  But then he did. He rushed in, wearing that NJPD SOFTBALL T-shirt he was always wearing, sweat patches under the arms. His jeans had food stains on them; on his feet were old Nike sneakers. He looked stressed.

  “Hey, everybody,” he said. “Cass! You’re staying for group today?”

  “Yep,” I said.


  “Cool.”

  He sat down, and Dr. Lewis got people to talk about how they were doing. We heard about the Red Voice and how it had been very aggressive all week, had made Rasheed burn himself with cigarettes.

  “My dad’s voice has been bad this week too,” said Dwight. “Telling me I’m worthless. Telling me I’ll never amount to anything. That I don’t care about … don’t care about …”

  “It’s okay,” said Dr. Lewis. “Go slow.”

  “That I don’t care about Paris.”

  “We all care about Paris,” said Dr. Lewis. “The voices can’t change that.”

  “We all care. But we’re not all cops,” said Dwight.

  Dr. Lewis nodded. “You feel a personal sense of responsibility.”

  Dwight: “**** yeah, I do! I know what people say. That we don’t care about the whores, that we’re not doing anything. But we have nothing. We have no clues. Nothing. ****. I shouldn’t be talking about this.”

  “This is a confidential environment,” said Dr. Lewis. “You’re in the circle of trust.”

  “Anyway,” said Dwight. “I do care.”

  “In this instance, then,” said Dr. Lewis, “the voice is representing the opinion of some of the media. That the police are incompetent.”

  “I guess.”

  “So tell the voice what you would tell the media. That it doesn’t understand the facts. Remind it of your schedule. You have it down to once a week, yes? The voice can talk on Fridays?”

  “I did,” said Dwight. “Before …”

  “Paris,” I said. I didn’t mean to speak, I just did.

  “Yeah. Your voice bad too?” said Dwight. His zits had come back hard, fresh new red spots over his scars.

  I forced myself back into the moment. “Yeah. Before … before, I had a big victory.” I looked out at the faces of the people. This was the first time I had spoken in group. They were looking at me with love, it seemed to me, their faces shining, some with hands clasped together. Willing me on. I smiled to myself. “The voice wanted me to cut off my toe and said it would kill my dad in the night if I didn’t. I didn’t. I couldn’t sleep all night, but in the morning my dad was alive.”

  “That’s amazing, Cass,” said Dr. Lewis. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “No,” I said. “I get that the voice doesn’t have the power it thinks it does. But then Paris … and then it started being nasty again. Insulting me. Telling me—”

  “That you’re a nobody little ***** and everybody hates you.”

  That was the voice.

  Obviously.

  “—telling me bad things,” I finished lamely.

  “Anyone else?” said Dr. Lewis. “Let’s talk about how Paris’s disappearance has impacted our voice hearing.”

  Blah.

  Blah.

  Etc.

  Here’s the important part:

  After the group was finished, I hung back. I was bursting with my insight; I was such an idiot. So naive. Thinking I could get Dwight to help me.

  When Dwight was leaving I kind of followed outside the bowling alley to the 7-Eleven. At the coffee counter where the sugar and stuff was, I touched his arm. He had a bag slung over his shoulder.

  “You’re working on the Houdini Killer case, right?” I said. “With Agent Horowitz and the other guy, the fat one?”

  “Cass! I shouldn’t—”

  “But you are?” I had told Julie not to talk to the cops, but I trusted Dwight. I had heard him talk about his voice, about the way his dad abused him. I knew he wasn’t the Houdini Killer. I knew that. I thought I knew a lot of things.

  He sighed and nodded.

  “There must be something I can do.”

  “Leave it to the police,” said Dwight. “That’s what you should do.”

  “She could be … being killed. Right now.”

  “Or she could have run away. Gone back to New York.”

  “Horowitz said that too,” I said. “But why would she? She left New York because her dad … because her dad …”

  “I know,” said Dwight. “I was in group with her, remember?”

  “So what about him?” I said. “Have you checked him out?”

  Dwight nodded. “Parents say they haven’t seen her. And the dad has an alibi. A woman from his work who’ll swear he was with her.”

  “You believe her?”

  “It’s not like a movie,” said Dwight. “When people lie it’s not obvious. Point is, it’s a dead end. We have her photo with every police precinct on the East Coast. If she turns up, she turns up. Other than that, we have nothing. No evidence, no clues. Nothing.”

  “He’s lying,” said the voice. “He’s a ******** liar. He knows something, but he’s not telling.”

  “After six p.m.,” I said quietly to the voice.

  “Your voice?” said Dwight.

  “Yeah. And it’s saying that you’re a liar. That there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “There’s an ass-load I’m not telling you! I’m a cop. This is all confidential stuff.”

  “It’s Paris,” I said. “If you know something important, I need you to tell me.”

  “I don’t know something important.”

  “But you suspect something.”

  “No! Leave it, okay?”

  “Dwight, please …”

  “Jesus, Cass. I shouldn’t even be having this conversation. And I have nothing more to tell you; nothing that will help you or Paris. I promise.”

  I sighed. I could sense I wasn’t going to get anything more out of him voluntarily.

  So I held my breath for as long as I could—I mean, literally held it in my lungs.

  “Cass, you okay?”

  I was, but I was hoping I looked pale. I let my eyes go droopy and slumped a little. “I get … low blood sugar,” I said. “Would you get … some candy?”

  “Candy?”

  “Yeah. It has to be …” I kept my body floppy, kind of leaned on the counter, as if to hold myself up. “… nut free. Can you check with them?”

  Dwight hesitated.

  “Please?”

  “Sure,” he said finally. He dropped his bag on the floor by my feet and went over to the cash register. I saw him talking to the Mexican guy there, finding out what was safe.

  “Quick,” said the voice. “While his back is turned.”

  I took out my cell phone and reached down for his bag.

  And there it was, inside his briefcase. A thick brown file, closed with loops of elastic:

  OAKWOOD PD ACTIVE FILE LF-098

  I flipped it open quickly, took as many photos as I could, turning the pages. I got maybe twenty, and then I saw Dwight coming back over—a rack of Jersey Shore car magnets was partially shielding me—and I dropped the file back into the bag and straightened up.

  “Skittles,” I said as he leaned against the counter and handed them over. “My … favorite.”

  The next morning I was sitting at home on my bed with my cell. I started paging through the photos of the case file. I hadn’t been able to check what I was capturing—had just pointed and shot, getting as many pictures as I could. You would have been proud of me. I mean, I had to learn to use the camera function specially, practiced the previous night, taking pictures of my wall, pages from my books.

  Almost immediately I stopped cold. Staring at the photo in front of me, of maybe the very first page in the case file. I should have known, I thought. It should have been obvious.

  It was right there in black and white on one of the first pages:

  Investigation into the disappearance of Lily Eleanor French.

  Lily.

  Eleanor.

  Not Paris. She must have taken the name for herself, maybe when she started … working. Because of her surname being French, maybe? Or before that, I don’t know.

  I remembered her saying to Shane that she was more Paris, Texas, than Paris, France, and now I thought: not Paris at all.

  I wondered if Jul
ie knew she was really named Lily. I figured it didn’t really matter anyway. She wasn’t Lily to me. She was Paris.

  Minutes passed. I was still looking at the name. Somehow it struck me as the saddest thing of all, this revelation. It was like … like an invasion of privacy. I mean, any investigation is an invasion of privacy. But.

  So, after a few minutes of just sitting there, getting used to this new reality, I made a simple decision: I was going to un-know this information. I was going to keep thinking of her as Paris. Because that was how she wanted me to think of her.

  I started going through the photos again. There was nothing else in them I didn’t know already—there was no evidence at the house; no fingerprints other than Paris’s; no blood. Her father’s alibi, in stark print.

  Mr. French was with me all night. We ate beef bourguignonne with an excellent Bordeaux.

  Her mother:

  I haven’t seen Lily for two years, not since she moved down to that awful town of yours.

  There was Julie’s witness statement too, the first part of it—I hadn’t managed to get any more with my phone camera. She went into the house. After that I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up she was calling my phone …

  I skimmed the rest. I already knew it.

  I clicked to the next picture—my wall.

  I was back to the start.

  I had quite literally hit a wall.

  I put my phone down. I felt even more sorry for Paris. Somehow, knowing she was really Lily … it made her seem smaller. More exposed. Younger.

  She wasn’t much older than you, I reminded myself.

  There was nothing in the case file, absolutely nothing. Like Dwight had said. Paris had just disappeared, and there were literally no clues to follow. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I just had to … stop.

  “You’re not giving up that easily?” said the voice.

  “Huh?”