by Mike Doogan
“You don’t expect members of your community to withhold information, do you?” Kane asked.
Wright gave him a wistful smile.
“Religion is important to most members of this community,” he said, “but it is a community of human beings. Not saints.”
“Or Angels?” Kane asked.
Wright’s smile faded.
“I know others call us that,” he said, “but it’s not a name we picked for ourselves. ‘Pride, and arrogancy . . . do I hate.’ ”
Kane cocked an eyebrow.
“Proverbs,” Wright said, “slightly edited.”
“It’s possible that your neighbors aren’t being complimentary,” Kane said. “There must be friction between a community like this and, say, the people around Devil’s Toe who are engaged in more worldly pursuits.”
“There is,” Wright agreed. “But is that of concern to you?”
“Until I find out more, everything is of concern to me,” Kane said. “You don’t suppose this friction might be connected to Faith’s disappearance, do you?”
Wright was silent for a moment.
“You mean, someone took out their animosity toward us on Faith? If that were the case, wouldn’t whoever did it want us to know?”
Kane looked at Wright, who looked back with an unruffled expression. I wouldn’t want to play cards with this guy, Kane thought. He’s smart, and he has a good poker face.
“They might,” Kane said. “They might not. One thing I learned in law enforcement is that people don’t follow patterns. Each one makes his own. Or her own.
“Anyway, I should get started.” He took out a notebook and a pen. “Let’s start with a physical description. Height, weight, eye color. All that.”
Wright nodded.
“Faith is five-foot-six, about one hundred twenty pounds. Shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes.”
“Any scars, distinguishing marks?”
“She has a small scar at the corner of her left eye, where a dog cut her with a claw when she was a baby.”
“That it? What was she wearing the last time you saw her?”
Wright shook his head.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t notice those things. Perhaps one of her friends can tell you.”
“A girl, you mean?” Kane asked. “Or is Faith the sort of girl the boys notice?”
Wright squirmed in his chair.
“I don’t think these are the sort of questions you can expect a father to answer. But Faith wasn’t seeing anyone here in Rejoice, and I don’t believe she was attending any of the social events at the high school.”
Kane had daughters of his own, so he understood Wright’s reluctance to discuss anything bordering on sex. Every father wanted his daughter to remain the little girl who thought kissing was icky. And when she decided it wasn’t, he didn’t want to hear about it. It must have been tough for Wright, he thought, to have a daughter go through her teen years with no woman in the house.
“Okay,” Kane said. “When did you see Faith last?”
Wright’s story was straightforward. It had been the previous Friday. They’d attended the morning gathering together and eaten breakfast in the cafeteria. Faith had her nose buried in her history book most of the time; she said she had a test that day. She’d seemed normal.
“What’s normal?” Kane asked.
“Friendly, but reserved,” Wright said. “A little formal.”
“A little formal? Even with her father?”
“Yes, even with her father. Maybe especially with her father. Her mother did most of the child-rearing and kept our family together. When she died, Faith and I grew apart.”
Kane understood this, too. Even not counting the time he’d been in prison, Laurie had raised their kids almost on her own. Kane was out chasing bad guys and, truth be told, hanging out with other cops, who were the only people he’d ever felt entirely comfortable with. He’d brought home a paycheck and doled out punishment when called upon, but otherwise the fact that the Kane children were functioning adults had been Laurie’s doing. If she’d died when the kids were young, God alone knew what would have happened.
“Faith said she had a couple of after-school activities, as she seemed to every day,” Wright said, “but would be back before dinner. Then she got into her car and left.”
“She had her own car?” Kane asked.
“None of us has his own car, but some of us have use of one. When Faith chose to attend the regional high school, the elders decided to grant her use of an old Jeep.”
“Where’s the Jeep now?”
“It’s plugged in outside the cafeteria building. It was sitting in the parking lot of the high school, and we decided to bring it back before it froze up completely.”
“Did anybody search it?”
“I looked around in it but didn’t find anything.”
“How about Faith’s room?”
“I didn’t find anything there, either.” Wright gave Kane an embarrassed smile. “I probably didn’t do the best job of searching anything. It seemed like an invasion of Faith’s privacy to me.”
“It is,” Kane said, “but invading people’s privacy is a big part of this job. I’ll probably do a lot of it here. That might make some problems for you.”
“We’ll deal with those as they come along,” Wright said. “What will you do first?”
“Search Faith’s car and room,” Kane said. “But before that I’ll need the names of the people who knew Faith best and where to find them. Including your father.”
“Faith and my father weren’t really close, at least not in the past few years,” Wright said, picking up a pen and writing.
“Why not?” Kane asked.
“I’m not sure,” Wright said, handing him the piece of paper. “I think he thought Faith wasn’t truly religious enough. And when she left Rejoice to go to high school, well . . .”
“Was that unusual?”
“As far as I know, Faith is the first child from Rejoice to do so.”
Wright handed Kane the keys to both the Jeep and the log cabin he shared with Faith.
“You lock things up here?” Kane asked.
“ ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ ” Wright said.
Kane got to his feet.
“I’ll be around here all day,” he said. “Maybe more than one day. So if you’ve got a spare bed, that would be good. And somebody might tell whoever runs the cafeteria to feed me, too.”
He turned to go.
“One more thing,” he said, taking the pictures out of the manila envelope. “Do you know these people?”
Wright looked at the picture on top, which showed a man in his late twenties with long, unwashed black hair and an earring. The photo did not seem to have been posed; the man was captured in profile, apparently talking with someone off camera.
“I think this is the fellow they call Big John, although the picture has to have been taken thirty years ago,” Wright said, holding it up. “At least that’s what he calls himself. If he has a real name, I’ve never heard it. He owns the Devil’s Toe Roadhouse and some other local, um, businesses. He doesn’t run them anymore, though, or so people say. That work’s done now by his son, who answers to Little John. There is another son, too, younger, named Johnny Starship. Named for his mother, they say. It’s an improbable name, isn’t it? Starship? Anyway, I don’t think she ever married his father.”
He stopped and shook his head.
“Listen to me, gossiping. ‘Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak.’ ”
“That’s from the New Testament, isn’t it?” Kane asked.
“Some of us read the New Testament, too,” Wright said with a smile.
He set that picture down and looked at the second one, a man with shoulder-length brown hair and a bushy brown beard. Like the first one, this looked unposed; the man had been captured glaring at someone to his right. Wright was silent for a moment.
“This is an old picture of my father, one I�
��ve never seen before. It was probably taken not long after Rejoice was founded.”
He gave Kane a questioning look, then picked up the third photograph. The blood seemed to drain from his face.
“Where did you get this?” he asked Kane.
“Someone had the pictures delivered to me. I’m not sure why.”
“That seems strange.”
“It does, doesn’t it. Do you know her?”
“I do, although I’ve never seen this particular picture. It’s my mother, Margaret Anderson Wright.”
He looked at the photograph some more. This one had the appearance of being posed. The woman was looking at the camera, joy in her eyes, her lips slightly parted and smiling.
“I just don’t understand why someone would give you her picture,” he said. “She’s been gone for so long.”
“Neither do I,” Kane said. “What can you tell me about her?”
Thomas Wright was silent for a long time.
“I’m not certain this is a subject I want to discuss,” he said at last.
“Tom,” Kane said, “if you expect me to work for you, you’re going to have to answer my questions. No matter how odd they might seem. Or invasive. Detection isn’t the straightforward, scientific process they make it seem on TV. It’s a lot of fits and starts and detours and dead ends. So you’ll have to humor me.”
Thomas Wright sat silently for a while longer. Then he sighed and shrugged.
“It’s not something we talk about much. And I was so young when it happened, I have no firsthand knowledge. All I know is that she left not long after my birth and was never heard from again. She just wasn’t cut out for the pioneer life, I guess.”
“Surely you know something. Take this picture. Was this taken before you were born or after? She looks pretty young here.”
“I wouldn’t know when the photograph was taken. My impression is that my mother was quite a bit younger than my father. As were most of those who came here to found Rejoice.”
“That’s it? Aren’t you curious?”
“Of course I’m curious, but my father won’t discuss it in any detail. I have asked others from time to time, but they were very circumspect. Today, with deaths and departures, I don’t think there is anyone left in Rejoice who would remember her.”
Wright sighed.
“I know very little. And I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. After all, the woman left her infant son and has never made a single attempt to get in touch since. Whoever she was, whoever she is, she has no interest in me. Why should I be interested in her?”
“So you haven’t tried to find her?”
“Really, Mr. Kane, do you have any idea what it’s like to try to keep something as complex as this community going, let alone moving forward? Even if I wanted to indulge my curiosity, I don’t have the time or the energy to do so. Or the resources, for that matter.”
“I suppose there’s no reason for you to try to find out something you don’t care to know,” Kane said. “Still, two pretty young blondes seem to have vanished from Rejoice thirty-five years apart. That’s interesting.”
“My mother didn’t vanish, she ran away.”
“How do you know that?”
“Everyone said so, and I’ve been listening to my father complain about it my whole life. In fact, you should ask him about it. He knows the details. Just stand back when you do.”
“I’ll do that,” Kane said, gathering up the photos and returning them to the envelope. “Thanks for your time. I guess I’ll get to work.”
He left Thomas Wright staring off into the distance.
The things parents do to children, Kane thought. But then, I’m not exactly perfect on that score myself, am I.
7
Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair,
and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel.
1 PETER 3:3
KANE TOOK HIS TIME GOING THROUGH THE JEEP, IGNORING the cold. A thickening stream of people headed for lunch passed him, but no one stopped to ask him what he was up to. This lack of curiosity surprised Kane, until he remembered that in small towns people spent a lot of time not poking their noses into their neighbor’s business. That’s how Anchorage had worked when he was a boy, before it grew beyond all recognition. Restraint was one of the things that made small towns work.
He didn’t find so much as a gum wrapper. That was odd. Kane had been through the cars of dozens of young women, and every one of them had been a mess. Either Faith was very neat, or she didn’t want to leave evidence of anything lying around. Or somebody else didn’t.
The driver’s seat was where it should have been for a driver of Faith’s height, and when Kane inserted the key the engine fired right up. He examined the Jeep’s seats with a flashlight, nose to the upholstery, and didn’t find anything. If something bloody had happened to Faith, it hadn’t happened in this car.
He walked back into the building and into the cafeteria. The tables were nearly full, and several women and girls stood behind the long counter, ready to serve. Women seemed like amazing creatures to Kane after his years in prison. Seeing them made him nervous in some way, and talking to them even more nervous. Well, he’d have to get over that. He walked up to one of them, a willowy, dark-haired woman in her thirties with intelligent eyes. She was dressed simply, in a way that neither accentuated her feminine attributes nor hid them. Of course, Kane thought, hiding that shape would take some doing.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I’m doing some work here, and I was hoping to eat lunch.”
“You must be the detective, then,” the woman said. Her voice washed over Kane like a warm breeze. “Help yourself.”
Kane got a tray and loaded it with chicken and vegetables while the woman watched him.
“Excuse me again,” he said when he reached her. “Where will I find a hot drink?”
“I’m afraid we don’t drink coffee here,” the woman said, “but I can offer you a cup of tea.”
“Why one and not the other?” Kane asked.
“Tea is in the Bible,” she said.
“Then I’ll take a cup,” he said.
The woman came right back with a cup of hot water and a selection of tea bags.
“I’m afraid I don’t know enough to make an intelligent choice,” Kane said.
“Try the Earl Grey,” the woman said, “most people like that.”
She turned to go back to her work.
“Excuse me one more time,” Kane said, “but do you know Faith Wright?”
The woman turned and looked at Kane. She had a smile on her face. Kane felt happy to have put it there.
“This is a small community,” she said. “Of course I know Faith.”
“Then, if you can spare the time, perhaps you could talk with me while I eat my lunch,” Kane said.
She came out from behind the counter, and they took seats at the nearest table.
“You know,” Kane said, dropping his tea bag into the water, “I’m certain Elder Moses Wright told me that the community doesn’t allow stimulants.”
“Elder Moses Wright doesn’t run the cafeteria,” the woman said matter-of-factly.
“And you do?” Kane asked.
“Yes, I do,” the woman said with a smile.
Enough of those, Kane thought, and I might get light-headed.
“Then I’m sure the operation is in good hands,” he said, smiling himself.
“Did you ask me over here just to flirt?” the woman asked. “With a woman whose name and marital circumstances you don’t even know?”
“I’m sorry,” Kane said quickly. “I didn’t mean to flirt.”
“It’s okay,” the woman said, placing her hand on Kane’s. “Even we Angels recognize that the difference between men and women is a gift of God.”
Kane slowly slid his hand away, then picked up his fork and began to eat.
“It’s just that I’ve sort of forgotten how to behave around women,” h
e said at last.
“I’m not surprised,” the woman said. “We were told you’d been in prison. You killed somebody, didn’t you?”
The woman’s matter-of-fact attitude toward his history surprised Kane. It must have shown in his face.
“Don’t worry,” the woman said. She picked up Kane’s spoon, lifted the tea bag from the water, set it in the spoon’s bowl, wrapped the string around it and squeezed. Dark drops fell into the water. She unwrapped the tea bag, set it down on the table, and used the spoon to stir Kane’s tea. “We were also told that you served many years in prison for a crime but were finally cleared by the authorities.”
Kane was sure he was goggling at her by now. She laughed.
“We’re used to talking about sins here, our own and other people’s,” she said. “We have many members who came here to get away from what they’d done elsewhere, to start over. So if you’d like to talk about it . . .”
To Kane’s surprise, he found he wanted to tell her all about the shooting and the years in prison. But he shook his head.
“I don’t think we have time for that right now,” he said. “Perhaps you could tell me what you know about Faith Wright?”
The woman looked at him for a long time. As Kane looked back, he could feel something fluttering around in his stomach.
“Okay,” the woman said, “some other time, then.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been here nine years now, so Faith was seven or eight when I arrived. She was bright, well-mannered, and seemed to be genuinely happy. She was a good student, and as far as I know didn’t cause her parents a moment’s worry.
“But then her mother, Martha, got sick. You could tell Faith was worried about her. The illness, cancer, moved along, and four years ago Martha died.
“About that time, Faith changed. She was still pleasant and well-mannered, but you couldn’t call her happy. She seemed to go inside herself, somehow. Most people thought she was grieving her mother’s death, but the change was permanent.”
“So you don’t think it was grief?” Kane asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” the woman said. “I have no training in psychology, but Faith’s trouble seems to be something besides grief. Or in addition to it.”