by David Bell
“Mr. Stuart’s had a long morning,” he said. “And I need to brief him.”
“Do you think your daughter is still alive? Do you think you’ll see her again?”
I couldn’t see who’d asked the question. The room swirled a little bit.
“Yes, I do.”
Camera shutters clicked and whirred. A flash went off. No one said anything, no more questions, so I kept going.
“In fact, I have seen her. Just this morning, I saw her in the park.”
The cameras clicked more rapidly. There were more flashes.
I felt hotter, more nervous, my clothes too tight and constraining.
“You saw her?”
“Your daughter?”
“Really?”
I felt a hand on my arm, a strong grip. Ryan. He started to lead me away.
I wanted to explain.
“I saw her-I saw a girl-in the park by the cemetery. I don’t really know if it was Caitlin-”
Ryan pulled me out of the room and down the hallway, leaving the reporters behind. He ushered me into another office, a small room with two empty desks and a filing cabinet.
“That was not a smart thing you just did back there,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?”
He sighed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Look, Tom. This came together quickly. I had to get that sketch out to the newspapers. Isn’t that what you wanted? And, yes, we do like to have the families at these things, but given the strain you’ve been under and the strain in your marriage, we-I-thought it might be best to talk about this on my own.”
“I can talk about my daughter if I want. I have the right.”
“You repeated a ghost story. Now anything good that would have come from the sketch could be overshadowed by what you said in there.” He turned toward the door and opened it. He stuck his head into the hallway and looked both ways. “Get out of here. Go out to your car and get out of here. And don’t talk to any reporters. I’ll try to make this right.” He gave me the once-over. “I think they’ll believe you’re under a great deal of stress and don’t know what you’re saying.” He remained in the door, holding it open for me.
But I wasn’t ready to go.
“Ryan, can I ask you something?”
He didn’t encourage me, but he didn’t walk away either.
“What do you think I saw in the park today? What was that?”
“You saw what you wanted to see,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less. It’s human nature to do that. This is a difficult time for you, Tom. Very difficult.”
“Is that it? It’s just an illusion?”
“The feeling is real,” he said. “The desire to see your daughter.”
I shook my head. “But it’s not enough, is it? The desire? The wish? For me, it’s just not enough.”
Chapter Fourteen
My cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. I kept my eyes closed, ignoring it, but it seemed to buzz louder, shaking and jumping against the varnished wood like a beached fish. I reached out and answered it without looking at the caller ID screen.
“Yeah?”
“What the fuck is going on up there?”
“Buster?”
“Did you see this shit in the paper? Did you really say this stuff?”
I didn’t immediately follow what he was saying. I tried, through the fog, to reconstruct the events of the previous day and evening. It came back in a rush-my morning at the park and my encounter with the reporters at the police station.
“It’s in the paper down there?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? Missing child possibly seen in strip club, in the company of an adult male, and then the father of the missing child goes on some loony riff about seeing the girl in the park-”
“I know the story,” I said. Through the window I saw a flat, gray sky. The house felt cool, as though the weather was turning. “I’m just glad it’s getting coverage.”
“Don’t worry. Everybody knows your story now.”
I pulled the blanket over my bare legs and leaned back against the soft pillows, letting them support my head and shoulders.
“I’m surprised you called,” I said. “I thought maybe I’d pissed you off.”
“You did,” he said. “But I’ve been thinking about you and how tough this is on you.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I haven’t appreciated the toll it must take on you. And I don’t mean in the obvious ways. Hell, look at you. You lost your dad when you were little. And then you lose your only child. I guess I don’t think of you losing your dad since my dad was always around, but you did. You lost your old man when you were really young. And now you’ve got this with Caitlin. It’s tragic.”
“Thanks.”
“It looks like I was wrong anyway. Shit, this is the real deal, isn’t it? Did you meet this witness?”
“I did.” I told him the story of meeting Tracy in the strip club. He listened, interjecting with occasional exclamations of amazement and surprise. Telling the story to someone who was so into it, who was eager to hear it and who had the appropriate responses, felt gratifying. I felt better just laying the facts out there. “So that’s where we stand,” I said when I was finished.
“I hope they catch this guy. Fucking dirtbag pervert. Look at his fucking face. Have you ever seen such a son of a bitch? I’d like two minutes in a room alone with him-wouldn’t you? I’d rip his fucking guts out for doing that to such a beautiful little girl.”
I didn’t feel anything quite like Buster’s anger. Other parents whose children were victims of violent crimes spoke that way, and I always felt something must have been missing in me since I couldn’t summon the same sense of rage.
When I didn’t answer his rage with my own, Buster changed the subject. “How’s Abby taking all this?”
“Oh, well, she’s the same, you know? She’s still ‘moving on.’ She doesn’t want to hear about any of this. In fact, she’s moving out. She’s leaving me.”
“Oh,” Buster said, his voice flat.
“You’re not surprised?”
“Not really. I could tell she was looking to make a break for it. I saw it in her eyes.”
I sat up straighter in the bed. “You did?”
“Sure. She looked like a caged animal. And she’s probably doing the bouncy-bouncy with that pastor guy.”
“You think that?” The twist of jealousy that knotted in my gut surprised me.
“Who knows?” he said. He sounded less certain now. He cleared his throat. “I’m just saying. . You know, you said you two weren’t exactly kicking it anymore, so why bother with her? You’re better off without her at your side. You need to know you have people there you can count on.”
“Yeah.” I stared at our ceiling. A long, narrow crack ran through the plaster, bisecting the room; it needed to be painted. “I was hoping maybe you could come up for a few days. You can crash here. I don’t know what’s going to happen next with this suspect. Like you said, it would be nice to have someone here, someone who’s on my side.”
Buster was silent. I waited.
“Well, you know,” he said, “I can’t exactly just break away at a moment’s notice. I’m working and everything.” He cleared his throat.
“Just a couple of days. .”
“Why don’t we wait and see how this plays out,” he said. “If you get big news or a break in the case, let me know. I’ll come up.” I heard someone talking in the background, a woman. Then the sound was muffled, like his hand was over the phone. I heard his voice but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then the sound cleared, and he was back on the line. “Okay?”
“Are you dating someone?”
“Here and there,” he said, his voice low. “So we’ll keep in touch and see what happens. Right?”
“Yeah. Right. I guess I need to work on my book.”
“Right. Idle hands and all that. D
id I ask you what it’s about? Is it Melville?”
“Hawthorne. Remember?”
“Cool. The Scarlet Letter. Man, I hated that book.”
I heard the voice again in the background.
“Okay, okay,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or someone else. “Okay, Tom, I’ve got to run.”
“Okay,” I said, but he was already off the phone.
Chapter Fifteen
I went to my office in the English department-more out of obligation than anything else-but I couldn’t concentrate on anything. When I sat down at my desk, it felt as though I were sitting behind an unrecognizable wooden block, a piece of furniture whose purpose I no longer remembered or understood. The whole room felt that way. It smelled funny-different-and the proportions and angles of the walls seemed off, as though it had been years and not weeks since I’d been there. I made a halfhearted attempt to sort through the mail. I placed it into two piles: things I knew I would throw away and things I would probably throw away.
I turned on my computer and listened to it whir and grind as it booted. Occasionally a group of students passed in the hallway, their voices sounding like the chirps and calls of exotic birds. It was a mistake to come, I decided. There was no work I could do.
I checked my e-mail. More than eighty messages waited, most of them departmental and university announcements. I scanned the subject lines: Health Fair. Estate Planning. Sandy’s Baby Shower. Spring Teaching Schedules. I didn’t bother to go through them. They’d still be there later, and if anyone needed anything important from me, they could call. I might not answer, but they could call.
I looked at my overcrowded bookshelves. At eye level sat a pile of research materials for the Hawthorne book. I rolled my chair over and picked them up. The top page was dusty, so I wiped it off with the back of my hand. ThenI flippedthrough.A couple of photocopied articles and some notes I’d made on a legal pad. I knew it was my handwriting, but the thoughts on the page didn’t mean anything to me. I couldn’t remember what I was trying to say. “Wakefield,” it read, and the word was underlined three times. “Opacity.” It was underlined three times as well.
Someone knocked on the door, quick, tentative taps. I decided to just ignore it. But they knocked again, louder and more insistent.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I put the Hawthorne notes away and opened the door.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Stuart?”
“Yes?”
Something about her face seemed vaguely familiar, and at first I assumed she was a student from a previous semester, one of the anonymous multitudes who flew under the radar in an American Lit survey, knocking out the requirement with the same joy and gusto usually reserved for doing laundry. But then I noticed the limpness of her hair, the tiredness of her eyes. It registered.
“Tracy,” I said. “I’m sorry. Out of context, I-”
“You don’t expect to see a girl like me here on campus.”
I stepped back. “Come in. Sit down.” She looked uncertain. Her eyes roamed the room as though she were across a boundary and into another world. She settled into my extra chair, the one where students usually sat. I took my seat behind the desk. “Are you a student here?”
Her laugh possessed a bitter edge. “Yeah, I’d have to rob a bank and not just take off my clothes to pay for this. I didn’t even finish high school.”
“Thank you for talking to the police and working with them on the sketch.”
She didn’t respond. Her hand was raised to her head, and her index finger twirled a strand of brittle-looking hair. Her eyes were focused on the desktop.
“It’s going to help a lot, I think. The sketch.” When she didn’t answer again, I said, “Is there a reason why you’re here? Is something wrong?”
“I guess that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, all that stuff in the papers and on TV about your daughter.”
“It’s there because of you.”
“Yeah. .” She stopped twirling her hair and looked at me. “I’m sorry about that.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“You believe my story, don’t you?” she asked.
“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly, and while she did I remembered Ryan’s comments about Tracy. Well detailed. Convincingly so.
“I saw what I saw,” she said. “I did.”
“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Have you thought about what you’d do if she came back?” she asked.
“You mean Caitlin, right? Have I thought about her coming back home?” I asked. “Of course. Many times.”
In great detail. Convincingly so. Caitlin running into my arms. Caitlin saying my name. Caitlin happy and smiling, a beautiful young woman ready to resume her life.
“I hope you get to see that come true,” she said.
She smiled a little, but it didn’t possess much warmth.
“Is something wrong, Tracy? Is there something you need to tell me that you’re having a hard time getting out?”
“You’re a religious man, right?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“I just thought since you saw that. . vision in the park yesterday.”
I squirmed a little in my chair. “I wouldn’t call it a vision.”
“But you saw something. Something you believe in. Like me at the club.”
For the moment, I followed the train of her thought. We were alike, she and I. We were both witnesses to things central to Caitlin’s case, and while others may have had their doubts, we were both certain. We believed ourselves and each other at the very least.
She started twirling her hair again. “I haven’t had an easy time of things, you know.”
“Since we met-”
“In life.”
She looked at me again, without smiling. Her eyes were hard, impermeable. Like colored glass.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I didn’t know where our conversation was going. I thought she was looking for reassurances from me, for an understanding that I felt happy about her coming forward and telling her story to the police. But something hovered beneath the surface of her words, something slippery and elusive I couldn’t get a handle on.
“See, I want to help you,” she said. “That’s why I called Liann, even though I’d been in trouble before and I don’t really like the police.”
“I understand.”
“I’d like to help you more.” She still twirled the hair. And with her other hand, she tapped a fingernail-the polish chipped and dark-against the armrest of the chair.
“Let me show you something.” She bent down out of my sight and rustled around in her bag. She popped back up holding a business card. She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face, then passed the business card across the desk to me. “Here. I brought this for you.”
I reached out. It was a business card for someone named Susan Goff of “Volunteer Victim Services.” A local phone number was listed under her name.
I knew my face betrayed my skepticism. “What is this?” I asked.
“She’s a lady who helps people.”
“A therapist?”
“She’s not a therapist,” Tracy said. “I don’t even know if she went to school.”
I tried to hand the card back. “I’m not really interested in that.”
“I met her through a friend,” Tracy said. “But she works with the cops too.”
The name sounded familiar to me. Volunteer Victim Services. Ryan had mentioned them to us more than once, but we never called or followed up. “The police are already working on this,” I said.
“She’s not a cop,” Tracy said. “She’s. . just someone to talk to, someone who’s willing to support you no matter what. She’s not working any angles.”
“Everybody has an angle, don’t they?” I asked.
�
�Susan’s nice. She’s not a lawyer or anything like that. She understands people and things.” Tracy rolled her eyes a little. “I mean, I know Liann’s trying to help me and everything, but she’s only willing to do so much, you know? She wants to help me, but she wants to help me on her terms. If I ask her for something, something outside her agenda, she shuts me down.”
“Have you been in therapy?” I asked.
“That’s all bullshit,” she said. “Therapists, social workers-you just tell them what they want to hear. They check off their little boxes on their little forms, and they pass you on to somebody else.” Tracy bent down again and brought out her cell phone. She studied the display and frowned. “I have to go in a minute. But keep that card and use it if you want. Maybe you could talk to Susan. I’ve talked to her before, and she’s really helpful, you know, with life and relationships and stuff. She listens to me. Really listens to me. You know what it’s like when someone really listens to you?”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
“Susan’s not a bullshitter. Not at all. She tells you the truth if you want to hear it. And if you don’t have a minister or a shrink or anything, you need someone to talk to. Right?”
“I don’t know. .”
“Think about it. Okay? She just. . she knows things. A lot of things. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I know myself. And she’s comfortable talking about stuff that’s tough to talk about.”
“Is this what you came to tell me?” I asked, holding the card in the air between us. “Is this all?”
She squirmed a little in the chair, shifting her weight from one side to the other as though fighting off an unpleasant itch.
“Tracy? Is there something else?”
“Remember how I said I had a daughter?”
“Yes.”
Her voice was lower. “You know how kids are expensive to raise.”
“I don’t follow.”
She squirmed some more. Side to side, rocking like a metronome.
“Are you asking me for money?”
“You see. .” She paused, let out a long breath. “I’ve been thinking about what I saw that night. Thinking and thinking. .”
“And?”
She slumped a little, her body going slack in the chair.