by Julie Smith
“I’ve got a blanket in my car,” she said, and gave him the key, upset at leaving the baby. She didn’t know the other officer. What if Caitlin woke up? Would he know how to take care of her? “When you’ve got it,” she said, “get on your radio and call the dispatcher. Say we need the coroner and the crime lab, and another car to take a baby to Juvenile.”
Caitlin was still sleeping. Skip spoke to the first patrolman: “If she wakes up, can you take care of her?”
He gave her an Irish grin. “Are you kidding? I’ve got three kids.”
She took a quick look around the house, saw that a bottle of bourbon and a wine bottle stood on the kitchen counter. Someone had dipped into the bourbon—about a cup was missing—and had all but demolished the wine. There were three glasses here—a wineglass and two tumblers, suitable for serving bourbon—as if Lenore had had two guests.
Her computer was set up in a small room in the back, still on—the screen indicated she’d been disconnected from the TOWN. Taped to her hard drive was a bit of yellowed, scruffy-looking paper with a gibberish word written on it in ink: “EtiDorhPa.”
Skip was dying to get started with that computer, but she couldn’t disturb a crime scene. The best use of her time right now was probably to get Pearce’s story.
“I’m going to go talk to the witness,” she told the patrolman.
Pearce was still in the car. Skip, considerably calmer than she had been half an hour ago, no longer wanted to kick his grinning teeth in. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“Snapped! You were a Class A bitch.”
She got up in his face. “Pearce, let’s get one thing straight. I’m a police officer; you either treat me with respect or you get more of the same treatment. Understand?”
“Just because you’re a cop you can’t—”
“I haven’t got time for this crap. Look. You’re a possible suspect. I’m going to read you your rights.”
“What?”
“Before I ask you any questions, you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent…” She watched the play of emotions on his face, saw his cockiness change to respect, noted, not for the first time, the sobering effect of the Miranda warning.
“I’ll answer your questions,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”
“First, let’s hear you apologize.” This wasn’t necessary to the interview, but Skip liked things clean. The suspect had been disrespectful and she was giving him a chance to wipe the slate; she’d feel better about him, be less likely to lose her temper with him.
“Sorry.” He lowered his head like a kid when he said it, practically whispered. It was all she could do not to grin. Like Geoff, this was a man who wasn’t truly a grown-up—except this one was well into his fifties.
“That’s better. Let’s go up on the porch.” The light was on there; she could see his face. “Okay, you said you came and got me out of bed because you thought I was your friend. What did you mean by that?” She had started here to let him know just how precarious his position was—if she was the easiest cop to deal with, he’d better not blow it.
“I’m kind of embarrassed about what happened.”
“How’s that?”
“It might sound crazy.”
She nodded sympathetically. “I listen to crazy stories all day.”
“Well, I’ve been kind of taking care of Lenore since Geoff died—trying to be her friend—and so when she E-mailed me to come over tonight, I felt I had to. I knew she was going through some rough times, and probably needed to talk to somebody.”
“What time was this?”
“It must have been about nine or nine-thirty. I’d just gotten home from dinner with friends.”
“Nine? Or nine-thirty?”
He thought about it. “Closer to nine, I guess.”
“And you came right over.”
“Yes. I got here near ten, I guess, and stayed about an hour and a half, maybe two; then I left. She was in a real bad way—I really felt lousy about it so I ended up in a bar, having a couple of drinks, and then I remembered I left something and I went back for it. She didn’t answer the door, so I went around the back.”
“You went around the back. Did you think she’d be in the backyard?”
Despite the chill—it was a nippy night—he wiped perspiration from his face. “I thought the back door might be open.”
“Oh. Why did you think that?”
“Well, while I was here, we went out the back, for a few minutes—to look at the moon. Lenore had a thing about the moon.”
“You thought she left the door open?”
He shrugged. “She was pretty loaded.”
“Well, if she didn’t answer the door, she was obviously either not home or asleep—did you plan to just walk in?”
He mopped his face again. “We’d been making love.”
She crossed her arms. “Fine. If you’ve made love with someone, that gives you the right to break into their house.”
“Look, it was a stupid thing to do, okay? I just wanted to get the thing I’d left and go home. I didn’t—” He searched for words, didn’t seem to find any. “I didn’t want to run into her.”
Skip hoped she looked as skeptical and disapproving as she felt.
The coroner and Paul Gottschalk from the crime lab turned up. She filled them in quickly, and went back to Pearce.
As if there’d been no interruption, she said, “Why didn’t you want to run into her? It was her house. You were her lover.”
“I didn’t feel too good about what was happening between us. When she invited me over, I thought she just needed someone to talk to, but she met me in this crazy getup with a garter belt and everything—look, I didn’t even want to make love to her. But she grabbed me.”
“She overpowered you. Great big Lenore and little tiny Pearce. Why didn’t you just report her for rape?” Part of her nastiness was meant for effect, but Skip was also aware that an even bigger part was perfectly sincere—that this was the same reaction Pearce had provoked in her before.
The guy’s a monumental dickhead.
“Look, I did it, okay? That doesn’t mean I’m proud of it. She was loaded—I should have just left when I saw how loaded she was.”
“But you didn’t want to disappoint her.”
He straightened his shoulders. “I didn’t. Okay? I thought she might hurt herself.”
“What do you mean hurt herself?”
“I mean commit suicide.”
“Why did you think that?”
“She was self-destructive. You could see it from twenty paces. This was a woman with ‘tragedy’ written all over her.”
“So you fucked her like the good friend you are.”
He flared. “Why are you crawling all over me?”
She spoke calmly and slowly. “Because it’s what you deserve. Because I’m a police officer. Because, as you yourself said, I’m the only friend you have in this department. If it was some other cop, have you got any idea what you’d be going through?”
“Oh, jeez. I wish I were dead.”
“What was the thing you forgot?”
“My coat.”
“I don’t think so, Pearce. If it was your coat you’d have said, ‘my coat,’ not ‘something I left.’ Also, you’d have noticed as soon as you got outside. It wasn’t your coat, Pearce. It was something of Lenore’s, wasn’t it? You waited till you thought she was asleep and in fact went to the back because you knew it was open—you deliberately left it open yourself—and you thought you’d just sneak in and burglarize Lenore.”
“No!”
“Well, then, did you kill her?”
He covered his face with his hands. Two more officers had arrived. One, a blond who looked like a football player, got out of a car and came over to Pearce and Skip. “There’s a baby here?”
Skip introduced herself. “In the house. Her mother drowned.”
“What about her father?”
“I
don’t know. The mother didn’t live with him. But she has a grandfather—something Marquer. A woman named Kathryne Brazil would probably know—she was the mother’s best friend.”
The blond nodded. “We’ll take care of it.”
Skip turned back to Pearce. “Okay, I’m giving you a whole new lease on life. This is your big opportunity, Pearce—to tell the truth for once. What was it you went back to get?”
He looked at her appraisingly, seemed to weigh his options. Finally, he lowered his head, just as he had when he apologized, and said in a low voice: “Geoff’s journal.”
It was all she could do not to repeat the phrase at top volume, followed by a chain of mental exclamation points. For that matter, it was all she could do not to jump on his chest and beat him senseless. Instead, she spoke gently, not wanting to risk losing the thread. “You want to tell me about that?”
“We found it in her car a couple of days ago—in his backpack. She didn’t know it was there; I guess she’d forgotten. She opened up the backpack and there was his journal.”
“Did you read it?”
“She wouldn’t let me.”
“Right. She wanted to make love.”
He shrugged.
In fact, Skip had spoken only half in sarcasm. The notion of Lenore—loaded, needy Lenore—snatching it away from him and clawing at his clothes, was all too believable.
“She went to sleep holding it.”
“Or you’d have stolen it then.”
“I’d have read it then. Don’t you think someone should have read it? This is a murder case, right?”
“That does bring up the interesting question of why both of you withheld evidence.”
She was just needling, but to her surprise, he addressed it. “Lenore wasn’t up to it, don’t you understand that? She’d fallen into some kind of a funk that turned her inward. The first few days she was all over the map, getting coroner’s reports, posting in ninety-three conferences, calling people up… but she was losing it. Somebody else died—her old music teacher—and she just couldn’t handle it.”
“That leaves you, Pearce.”
“Goddammit Skip, I’m a reporter.”
“Okay, I’m leaving that one alone. So you got back to Lenore as quickly as you could….” - In fact, you came back for the sole purpose of getting your hands on the journal…
“Yeah. I did. But she came out with the garter belt the minute I stepped in the door.”
“What did the journal look like?”
“Book-size, I guess. Covered with Chinese silk—a blue pattern. And it had some leather on the side; cheap leather, nothing fancy.”
“Okay, stay here a minute.” If he tried to run, she had plenty of policemen to chase him. She went in and told Gottschalk about the book.
When she came back, she said, “Did you drink anything when you were in there?”
“Some bourbon. Why?”
“Did she drink anything?”
“I think she had some wine.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“What? Skip, we made love, remember?”
“Did you see another person at Lenore’s tonight?”
“No. Could we sit down? I’m tired of standing up.”
“I’ll send you to headquarters. You can wait there for me.”
“Oh, hell. This is okay.”
“Did you see her suicide note?”
“You guys found a suicide note?”
“Did you see it, Pearce?”
“No.”
“So what did she look like?”
“What?”
“Let’s go back to when you got there the second time—you went around back and then what?”
“The light was on, which it hadn’t been before. This sort of see-through thing she’d been wearing was floating in the pool. And then I saw her arm and the back of her head, floating.”
If he was telling the truth, the body must have floated sideways as well as up and down; who knew how many positions it had assumed before being removed—a silent sentry in the universe, subject to the whims of wind and water, performing a static, pathetic ballet.
“What did you do?”
“I got out of there. Fast.”
“You got out of there. Did you try to pull her out?”
“Hell, no. I just split. Period.”
“Maybe she was alive.”
“No way. She was a former human being.”
“I guess that’s better than never being one.”
“What?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t even check to see if she was dead? That you made love to this woman and you couldn’t even get your clothes wet finding out if she was alive or dead? You couldn’t even call 911?” She was furious.
“I told you. There was no question. She was dead.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No. She was floating facedown.”
“Then how could you possibly know she was dead?”
“I just did, that’s all.” He was shouting. She’d finally made him mad.
“On the way over, you told me she’d been murdered. What made you think that?”
“I didn’t know that. I just said it to get your attention.”
Time to let him think that one over. “Okay, look, I’ve got a crime scene to take care of. You want to go back to headquarters and wait for me?”
“How would I get there?”
“An officer will take you.”
“Do I have to?”
She waited a long time before answering, and narrowed her eyes when she did. “It would show good faith.”
“Okay. Sure.” He even tried his cocky grin again.
She went and got the first two officers to take Pearce to Homicide. Then she canvassed the neighbors—which turned up the usual nothing—nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything.
Finally, she went out for coffee—for herself and Gottschalk. She sat on the front porch, sipping, while waiting for him to finish. When he left, he still hadn’t found the journal, so she turned the house upside down.
It wasn’t there.
Next came the computer problem. The machine was off now, the keyboard filthy with fingerprint powder. She turned it back on, wishing she had a pair of rubber gloves. She logged on as Steve Steinman, suffering a slight twinge, thinking it wasn’t quite ethical to use your boyfriend’s TOWN account when you’d just dumped him.
Where had Lenore posted her suicide note?
Since Layne was the caller, it couldn’t have been in the women’s conference. It might be Confession, in one of the topics on Geoff, she thought, and went to the first, which had now split into two. She tried the second one, the more recent.
There was a post by Lenore at eight-fifteen, riddled with typos, but not the one Layne had mentioned. To Skip’s mind, it was almost more intriguing.
“Opened car trunk and guess what>?” it said. “Who knew? It was like a ghost come back from the dead. His backpack was thereQ@ Talk about freaked out. There it was, Heoff’s backpack, right in my car. And guess what weas in it? Hiw journal. It was like Geoff could talk to me now, could talk to me over that biggest bridge of all. I lost someone else besides Geoff, all in a week. thsi means a lot to me, habving a little bit of geoff. I know a lot more about what hwappened than i did before, but don’t want to talk about it yet. somebody fucked him over. We have to have a TOWN meeting to figure out wehat to do.”
Other people had posted afterward—innocuous notes of good cheer like, “Hang in there, Lenore”; “What a spooky thing!” But there was also a “More, more!” contingent, people who had read the post as if Lenore knew who the murderer was, who’d interpreted her request for a TOWN meeting (whatever that was) as a call for a public hanging. There was the scent of virtual blood in the air.
Lenore had been back online about three hours later—at twelve-eleven, with the note Layne must have meant: “Don’t think I can go on anymore. Life’s just too much. Can;t think of a single thing
that makes me happy any more, too much death; too mush sickness, toomuch incompetence (mine), i read that you ahve to love yourself to be happy just howthehell are you supposed to do that? id fomeboy knows would they kuuist kgivbe me lessons, please? don;t know if i was cut out for motherhood - - blowing it copletely. Caitlin de serves better, and anything would be better. Iwant to die.Q@! I could, too. I have a sweilling pool. I woulc just get in and hit bottom and never come up. Frankly, i think bottoem is where i am now.”
Skip scrolled down to the present time. It was Lenore’s last post in that conference. Since E-mail wasn’t saved in the sender’s file, Pearce could have safely lied about Lenore’s having summoned him. Instead, what might have happened was, Pearce saw the first post, came over to her house, got the journal, left, read it, and found it incriminated him. Then Lenore, realizing she’d been used for something a lot more humiliating than a sex toy, had drunk everything in sight, taken every pill she could find, and begun rambling incoherently on the TOWN. Then Pearce, fearing that Lenore had also read it, and seeing a fine opportunity, had dashed back, done the deed, and pretended to find the body.
That might explain his bizarre behavior in failing to call 911—the more attention he could draw to himself the better, since a murderer would never do such a thing, but would simply sneak off into the night. It was a distinctly inelegant plan, poorly suited to a person of Pearce’s low cunning, but once again, that might have been its appeal for him.
I’m too exhausted for this kind of stuff.
But I’d better go see him.
She was about to turn off the computer when the tattered bit of paper taped to the hard drive suddenly gave her an idea. The word didn’t seem to be English; indeed had all the earmarks of a made-up word. And it had capital letters where there usually weren’t any.
A made-up word with internal caps—it followed the rules for a password exactly. She logged in as Lenore and then typed “EtiDorhPa.”
On her way to the police station, she stopped for more coffee and breezed in, speeding on caffeine, in a mood that came close to good. “Brought you some coffee.” She slid a cup over to Pearce. His expression didn’t change.
“So. How was that diary?”
“I told you. She wouldn’t let me see it.”
