by David Bell
“I know Detective Ryan was kind of hard on you,” I said. “He’s just doing his job, trying to find out what’s going on.”
Silence.
“He left you a note.”
“Fuck him.”
“I don’t mean Detective Ryan.”
She cut her eyes toward me. I waited while the realization showed on her face.
“He left it in the cemetery, with a bouquet of flowers. Ryan took it, but I’m sure he’ll show it to you at some point. I think they’re looking for fingerprints.” I paused, letting that hang in the air a moment. “The note said not to come back. It told you to go away and not come back.”
“Why would anyone leave a note in the cemetery?” she asked.
“Maybe because that’s where he took you.”
She started to turn back to the TV, but stopped. She looked at me again, still processing. “Was my name on it? The note. Was my name on it?”
“No.” I didn’t know where she was going with this.
“Then how do you know it was for me?”
“He left it someplace special,” I said. “Someplace just for you.”
She had never been a stupid kid. She was always two steps ahead of Abby and me, even when she was little.
“What could be just for me in a cemetery?”
I didn’t say anything, but Caitlin stared, her eyes a little wider.
“No,” she said. “You fuckers.”
I was trapped. “You were gone a long time, Caitlin. We wanted to celebrate your life somehow.”
She started shaking her head.
“You buried me,” she said.
“No.”
Her mouth hung open, her face disbelieving.
“He was right,” she said.
“Who?” I asked. But I knew. The man.
“He said you’d forget about me. You’d move on.”
“He lied to you, Caitlin. We never forgot.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“It’s a headstone, Caitlin. It’s just a memorial, a tribute.”
She turned back to the TV, her jaw set like granite.
“I’ll show you the note when I can. He’s done with you. Stop protecting him.”
“You’ll never know what happened,” she said. “Never.”
“I will.” I raised my hand, index finger extended. “I promise.”
She shook her head, speaking one word.
“Never,” she said. “Never.”
I looked outside, where Buster paced back and forth on the porch, a new cigarette burning in his mouth. It looked like Ryan was gone, so I went outside.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Breaking my balls, I guess.”
He kept pacing.
“What did he ask you?”
He stopped pacing and came up to me. The cigarette smoke curled up into his face, and he squinted.
“He showed me that sketch and asked if I knew who the guy was. Then he asked if any of my associates might know the guy. Associates. Can you believe he used that word? Associates.”
“What did you say?”
He took the cigarette out of his mouth, still squinting. “What do you think I said? I told him I didn’t know the guy. I told him the same stuff today I told him four years ago. Did you put him up to this?”
“I need to know.”
He broke off eye contact with me and walked away, turning his back. I was surprised to see his hair was thinning at the crown of his head, allowing pale skin to show through. He was younger than me, so much younger than me, I always thought. He took a last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the porch, grinding it beneath his shoe.
“Your brother?” he said. “You’d really question your brother?”
“I don’t know. .” I paced a little, back and forth on the porch.
“You’ve got all this anger, Tom. All this anger toward me. Toward the family. We were close as kids. We looked out for each other. I looked out for you. Always.”
“I know,” I said. “But you should have heard the things Ryan was saying back there. .”
“What kinds of things?”
I sat down, taking the same seat I was in when we talked to Ryan. Buster sat down, too, using Ryan’s chair. He waited for me to talk, leaning forward expectantly. I wasn’t sure where to start.
“Ryan came by today to tell us that people saw Caitlin out in public with this guy.”
“You’re kidding,” he said.
I shook my head. “Restaurants, strip clubs. Hell, maybe they went to church together for all I know. She was with this guy, in public, and she could’ve gotten away from him-several times-and she didn’t. She stayed with him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think of that.”
Buster leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. He looked like a wise sage, absorbing my story. But I noticed that his fingers were intertwined and squeezed so his knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s fucked-up.”
“At the hospital,” I said, “they did a bunch of tests. They wanted to make sure Caitlin was in good shape and everything.”
“Sure.”
“They did a gynecological exam.” I felt deflated. “She’s not a virgin anymore.”
Buster lowered his hands and gripped the armrests of his chair. He looked like he’d been slapped. “He raped her,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “It figures, the fucking pig.”
I made a helpless, hopeless gesture with my hands, somewhere between a shrug and a surrender.
“What are we going to do?” Buster asked.
“I need to get back inside.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are we going to do?”
I couldn’t look at him. “I need time to think about all of this.”
“Sure.” Buster stood up. “The thoughtful, scholarly man. Consider all the angles. Mull it over. We’ve got time, right?”
“You want to go beat the guy up? Find him and kill him?”
“It’s a start.”
He didn’t sound like he was kidding.
“I thought you didn’t know who he was,” I said.
“That’s just it, professor. You find out. You’ve got the sketch. You’ve got two good legs. Can you do any worse than the cops?”
“Did Caitlin tell you anything when you were alone with her?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the house. “Did she talk to you?”
“Not really. We talked about TV. She said she’s watched the last few seasons of American Idol. It’s her favorite show.”
“So she could watch TV, wherever she was.”
“I guess so.” He seemed to be thinking about something. “Hey?” he said.
“What?”
“Is she-? I mean-did they do a pregnancy test at the hospital?”
“They did. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous.”
He nodded. “So then, it was cool, right? I mean, there’s nothing else to know about that, is there?”
“That’s one thing off my list.”
I stood up. Buster reached for the door and pulled it open.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I think we need to be alone now. Abby’s upset. . and Caitlin. .”
Buster gave me the same smirk I saw him give Ryan.
“I was just getting the door for you, chief. I thought you could use a hand.”
He held it open while I went in, then let it slam shut behind me.
Chapter Thirty-two
I wasn’t sure what brought me awake.
It was a few days after Ryan’s visit. Abby and Caitlin were sleeping in the master bedroom, and I was deep asleep in the guest room when something woke me up.
I wondered if Caitlin was stirring, trying to get out. I had suggested to Abby that we call a locksmith, that we have the windows and doors secured better than they were. Abby vetoed that idea. She said we had to resume normal life as much as possible, that we couldn’t all live like prisoners in our own home.
Did something make a noise?
Rain?
I swung my feet to the floor, listening.
The house was quiet, deathly so. The evening was clear, the stars bright.
I’d imagined it. Maybe it was a dream, the subconscious emergence of some unremarkable phantom.
I needed to roll back under the covers and close my eyes, but a part of me couldn’t let go. I wanted to-needed to? — look outside, into the yard and the street.
I stood up in my drawstring pants and T-shirt. I parted the curtains.
The streetlights glowed. The shadows beneath the trees were thick and black. Nothing moved. No cars.
Then I saw the girl.
She stepped into the bright circle created by the streetlight, looking like a stage actor. She stopped there, seemingly without destination or intent. She looked the same as in the cemetery, like Caitlin.
I pressed my hands against the glass, almost shouted.
She looked up and darted out of the light.
I ran.
I hit the stairs going full speed, trusting to the fates that I wouldn’t fall and break my neck. I knew I’d wake Abby and Caitlin, but I didn’t care.
She looked so much like Caitlin.
I scrambled to open the door.
She’s gone. Too late-she’s long gone.
I got the door open and ran in the direction I’d seen the girl go.
I was still barefoot. I slipped on the dewy grass, almost went down. Then I ran into the street, the small bits of dirt and road grime pricking my soles.
Except for where the streetlights glowed, everything was inky black. I ran down the center of the street, heading toward the park. My neighbors’ houses were dark, the world closed up and in bed.
Why was the girl out there?
I finally stopped halfway up the street. She was gone. Disappeared.
And I was out of breath and feeling foolish.
But she’d been at the house. She’d wanted something from us.
From me? From Caitlin?
Huffing and puffing, I turned and went home.
Lights were on upstairs and downstairs. Abby and Caitlin were awake.
I limped up the front steps, my feet aching and bruised, and was greeted by Abby, who held the door open for me.
“What the hell’s going on?” she asked.
I came in and sat down in the living room. I was sweating. My T-shirt clung to my body. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.
“The girl,” I said.
“Caitlin?”
I shook my head. “The girl I saw in the cemetery. She was outside tonight, in the street. She was looking at our house.”
Abby didn’t say anything. She just stared.
I knew what she was thinking:
Poor man. Poor, poor man, driven crazy by stress.
I looked past Abby. Caitlin stood at the top of the stairs. She wore the Fields University nightgown Abby had bought her, and she looked down at us, her feet on different steps like she’d been frozen in midstride.
“You know that girl, don’t you?” I asked.
“Tom-”
“You know who she is and what she wants.”
Caitlin turned to go, back up the stairs and to the bedroom.
“That girl knows that man, doesn’t she?” I asked. “She looks just like you, Caitlin, like when you were a little girl. I’m going to get ahold of her.”
She was gone. Abby placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Easy, Tom. Take it easy.”
I didn’t realize I’d been shouting. I tried to calm down, but it took a long time for me to catch my breath.
We returned to Dr. Rosenbaum’s office a few days later. He asked to see Abby and me first, leaving Caitlin again under the watchful eye of Mary the receptionist. Rosenbaum sat without notes or pen, just the coffee mug in his right hand and the same casually expectant look on his face.
“Anything different at home?” Rosenbaum asked.
Abby and I looked at each other. Before she could say anything about my adventure from a few nights earlier, I said, “Nothing unusual.”
“Things are better then?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say better,” Abby said. “Do you think it’s a good idea for Detective Ryan to press Caitlin about what happened already?”
“How do you mean?”
“He came over the other day, and he really pushed her hard about what happened to her. He was almost aggressive. I didn’t think it was best for her to hear that already.”
Rosenbaum pursed his lips. He set the coffee mug down. “Right. Detective Ryan mentioned to me that he had talked to Caitlin at your house. Sometimes the police press like that because they think the case is time sensitive. Say, for instance, the man who did this is thinking of leaving the area, or even committing another, similar crime. Detective Ryan would like to get to him before that happens.”
“So you think it’s okay for her to hear these things so soon?” Abby asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Rosenbaum said. “I’ve worked with the police a lot, and we don’t always agree on how to approach these things. We have different priorities sometimes. But Detective Ryan is a good man. Give him a chance.”
Abby didn’t seem placated. Neither was I, but we didn’t say anything.
Rosenbaum apparently decided to move forward. “I wanted to try to get a picture of what your home was like before Caitlin disappeared,” he said. “Just some background information for me.”
“I guess we were normal,” Abby said.
“Whatever that means,” I said.
Rosenbaum smiled a little. “But you two are separated now, so something must have been going on.”
“I think those issues arose in the wake of Caitlin’s disappearance,” I said. “I don’t think either one of us dealt with it all that well.”
“Abby?” Rosenbaum said.
“I guess I feel as though the problems were beginning back then,” she said. “I felt that over the years Tom and I grew apart. Our lives were kind of going in different directions. It’s not that we didn’t love each other. It’s just that we were becoming different people. He was pursuing his academic life and work, and I was developing in other ways. I wanted to work on my spiritual life. Caitlin may have been aware of all that. She was a smart kid.”
“Is,” I said. “She is a smart kid.”
“Tom, do you share Abby’s assessment that problems might have been brewing that far back?”
“Abby would know about her unhappiness better than I would. Maybe there were issues brewing back then that came to the forefront when Caitlin disappeared. Sometimes it did feel like we were traveling on parallel tracks.”
“What about Caitlin at that time?” he asked. “Had she shown an interest in boys yet?”
“Not really,” Abby said. “I’m sure she liked some boys at school. Some names came up from time to time.”
“She didn’t have a large number of friends,” I said. “She’s kind of a loner. It’s no surprise really that she’s being so tightlipped now. She could be like that sometimes.”
“But she had friends,” Abby said. “She was a well-liked girl.”
“Had she reached puberty yet?”
Abby nodded. “About six months before,” she said.
Abby had taken Caitlin out to dinner about a year and a half before she disappeared, just the two of them. Abby explained the changes that were going to be coming over her body and the ways women coped with them.
“Were there emotional changes associated with puberty?” he asked. “Mood swings? Anger?”
“She was turning into a teenager,” Abby said. “There was more eye rolling, more snippy answers. Caitlin always played things close to the vest.”
“Did it bother you that she played things ‘close to the vest’?”
“It’s just the way she was.” I caught myself. “Is.”
“Did it force you to be more strict with her?”
“N
ot at all,” I said. “We didn’t have a lot of rules.”
“Who was the disciplinarian?”
“Abby probably was more than me.”
“Were you around a lot, Tom?”
“I worked.” I look down and picked a piece of lint off my pants. “But my job at the university allowed for a flexible schedule. I was home more than a lot of dads.”
“Were you a factor in Caitlin’s life?”
“A factor?” I asked. “I’m her dad.”
“He was very involved with her life those first twelve years,” Abby said.
“Why do you ask that?” I said.
“Sometimes young women who are in restrictive homes or who aren’t getting significant attention from their male parent seek that attention through other avenues. They engage in reckless drinking or sexual behavior. Drugs even. Or they seek that attention they think they’re being deprived of in other people. Substitute male authority figures.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m speaking in generalities, of course,” Rosenbaum said. “Caitlin hasn’t offered us much, so I’m working through some possibilities that might explain what happened.”
“I don’t think she ran away, if that’s what you’re saying,” I said.
“I’m not suggesting that,” Rosenbaum said. “In fact, I’m glad to hear your certainty about the issue. Abby, do you share that certainty?”
“No, she didn’t run away,” Abby said. “I know my daughter. She wouldn’t have done that.”
“Do you still know her?” Rosenbaum asked.
Abby tapped her chest three times. “In here, I do. In here, always.”
I admired her in that moment, her certainty, her bedrock belief that things made sense. I didn’t have it, and I wasn’t sure Rosenbaum did either.
“Fair enough,” he said. “If you’ll step outside now, I’m going to chat with Caitlin.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Sunday morning, a few days later, and Abby came into my bedroom. I didn’t hear her knock. She was just there, wearing her robe, her hair still disheveled and her eyes puffy from sleep.
She sat down on the side of the bed.
“Is something happening?” I asked.
“Shh. It’s fine.”
“What?”