by Melanie Finn
With perfect synchronicity, they pulled back from the sudden connection. Christianne began to laugh, and Rose, too. They laughed at themselves, the wild hysterical laughing that The Giggle Man had once plucked from Rosie, and yet this was different, welling from some other place in her body, from her feet, from her ears — some outer extremity working its way along the wires within, thrilling and curative as the kiss, she couldn’t stop laughing and neither could Christianne, and they were howling, hooting, teeth flashing in the street light, hands flapping, until at last they faltered and gasped to silence. Christianne lifted her hand to Rose’s face. “We’re so done here.”
As they drove away, Rose realized she’d wet herself slightly while laughing. Did Christianne have this problem? Did she still have a prostate? Rose remembered the old people she’d once cleaned and tended. Decrepitude was entirely democratic.
Beside her, Christianne was tilting slightly forward to gauge her way through the fast traffic and Rose took a deep breath. Lowell devolved behind them. As they merged into the tunnels of downtown Boston, Rose said, “Thank you, Christianne.” She was nervous that Christianne would invite her up to the hotel room, the intimacy of the previous hour would be misconstrued and turn awkward. Yet when they arrived, Christianne got out and handed Rose the keys, they shared the briefest hug.
“Keep in touch,” Christianne said, then turned and sauntered up the hotel steps.
By the toll station on the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, Rose was sobering up, the window open, the take-away coffee in her right hand; not drunk but heightened by the rush of chemicals within her body and brain. She thought of the credit card machine —
Processing…
Processing…
The intensity of the evening had a physical impact. Her limbs ached, most acutely in the joints, and she felt a solid pressure in her upper abdomen, as if her diaphragm was weighted like a stone, making breathing difficult. She turned on the radio. My Angel is the Centerfold. She remembered Bennett, the last time she’d driven this way. The J. Geils Band, wasn’t it? Na na nanna nananana. Were they even still alive? Tottering onto a stage somewhere in tight jeans, their lives a constant reprise. The least that Rose could say was that her life wasn’t an endless repetition. Past Concord the reception faltered, and she was left with the long highway, her eyes sketching the darkness for deer and moose.
An hour later, she’d entered the narrow slot of Franconia Notch where 93 filtered down to one lane, winding through high black mountain towers. This late, there was very little traffic. By Littleton, she desperately needed a pee. Just off the highway, there was an Irving gas station. She entered the bright space, considered what she should buy, not only because she felt it rude to use a toilet for free, but because the frivolity of gas station fare suddenly appealed. Doritos or gummy bears? A York Peppermint Pattie? She glanced over the healthy snacks, and wondered, what was the point? You could buy complete and utter crap in here and no one would judge. She bought iced tea and a bag of Sour Patch Kids. By the time the tea hit her bladder and the sugar hit her bloodstream, she reckoned, she’d be home.
There was one other customer: a young woman, dark-haired, squeezed into a pair of jeans she’d bought when she was 20 pounds lighter. Lots of earrings. She was buying car oil, attempting to ask the cashier which kind she needed. “The 10-30 or the 10-15?”
He shrugged, “Dunno.”
Yet in her desperation she persisted: “Do you know how much I need to put in?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I don’t know anything about cars.”
Ma’am? She was a girl, hardly older than he was.
“It’s probably 10-30,” Rose intervened. “That’s what my car takes.”
The girl turned to her. “Do you know about the oil light? It’s flashing.” She turned her head aside, made a correction in her tone so that she did not sound afraid, merely tired. “I’m just trying to get home.”
“Your insurance might cover a tow.”
“I don’t have insurance.”
“Isn’t there anyone you can call?”
But no, there wasn’t, Rose already knew the answer. No boyfriend, no husband, no trustworthy dad, no friend. Not at this hour, not in her current life.
Rose said, “How far are you going?”
“Just through the Notch.”
“I’d take you if I was going that way. But I’m heading north.”
“That’s kind. Thank you. It’s not far, I think if I put oil in, I’ll make it. Don’t you?”
“The 10-30 should be fine. Maybe two quarts.”
“What’s a quart?”
“The small size bottle. Then take it to your mechanic in the morning.” Although, Rose knew, this girl didn’t have a mechanic.
“Thank you — really.”
And because she knew, Rose said, “Do you have the money for the oil?”
The young woman hesitated. “I have some.”
A crumple of dollar bills, a clink of coins.
Rose gave her a twenty, the last of the money she’d taken from Bob.
A pair of ravens turned in the sky, falling and soaring up, flipping and pirouetting.
In the distance, thunderstorms loomed over the Presidential Range. Rose had hiked them once with Miranda on a school field trip. She’d enjoyed the walk, but there were too many people. Absurd to be in a wilderness and syphoned onto a worn, narrow path, nodding “Hello” and “Lovely day” every other minute. Rose preferred the mountain at her back door. Diminutive though it was, after three decades there were still drainages to explore and a rumored granite mine she’d yet to discover. The mountain continually changed: ice storms laid waste to the tall old trees, or loggers did. The beavers abandoned one set of dams and formed others. She was especially glad of small discoveries: a particular wild apple mysteriously favored by morels; the old fence lines of barbed wire enfolded in the tough bark of a huge maple tree.
Ginny was lagging today, and Rose pretended to retie her shoe. They continued along the ridge, ending at a rocky outcrop from which the very edge of Vermont tilted into New Hampshire. Here and there, a metal roof glinted, and there were open patches of farmland. But mostly it was forest rising into mountain.
“It still amazes me that almost none of these trees are more than a century old,” Rose said. “Back then, the land had been stripped, acre by acre, of trees with the girths of houses, all in the name of sheep. Most of the wildlife vanished then, too. The wolves, cougars, and bobcats hunted to extinction, the moose and deer pushed into the remnant woods. The towns along the river and the railway had been built on wool money — fine libraries and town halls, churches, and mansions. Then the bottom fell out of the wool market.”
“Larry says it’ll happen with oil.” Ginny sat down and took out her water bottle. “All our destruction, those awful tar sands, and all the fortunes built on oil. Sooner or later, we’ll find some other source of energy.”
Rose took the rock beside her friend. “Try buying lamb around here now.”
“Costs a fortune!”
They sat for a while watching the ravens in the gyre. Then Ginny said: “I’m dying.”
Which Rose at first thought was just Ginny saying she was hot or thirsty. Because Rose wanted to talk about Christianne, and her conflicting emotions and maybe even about the trip they’d taken to Lowell. Already, the evening — only a day before — hardly seemed real. One of those distant roofs, glittering in the sun, far away. “No, you’re not,” she replied.
Though she knew.
In the silence that followed, she knew, and the way Ginny kept watching the ravens. And all the way back, for months, Rose had known simply because she and Ginny never talked about the cancer. It was ironic: the most important things weren’t discussed. Somehow, the time wasn’t right, or the words could not be found. But possibly, Rose was just too afraid to ask.
Ginny’s hand was on her arm. “Rose.”
Rose surfaced, turned.
“Larry and I ar
e moving to Martha’s Vineyard. We’ve rented a house right on the sea. Outrageously expensive.” She laughed softly. “But you only die once.”
“When?”
“Three months. The doctors say anyway.”
“I mean, when are you leaving here?”
“End of the week.”
“I should have asked you. You were going to Hanover for treatment, and I should have asked how it —”
“No. It was me. I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to come on our walks. They mean so much to me.”
Rose’s mouth was dry with outrage. Ginny had been too happy, and Fate couldn’t bear happiness — Ginny’s wasn’t even garish happiness, but the simple kind. Ginny in her garden, Ginny making jam. Even her marriage to Larry wasn’t extrovertly happy — just two people who shared the crossword and liked the same books. “Can I visit you?” she asked.
Ginny shook her head. She wasn’t crying. Dying of cancer was beyond tears. Cancer was spilled milk. So Rose fastened herself inside.
“What can I do to help?”
Ginny took her hand. “You’ve already done it. You’ve been a great friend. You love me. And you value me.”
The ravens turned high above them, an impeccable choreography. “Don’t you wonder about their synchronicity?” Rose said. “How are they communicating so instantly?”
“Thank you,” Ginny whispered.
INTERSTATE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN — Body of woman found near Franconia Notch.
Rose grabbed the paper, read on:
The body of an unidentified woman was found by a Franconia Notch Park Ranger on Friday morning. Police are treating it as a suspicious death, possibly connected to two other similar murders of women in the North Country-Northeast Kingdom area.
“We are asking anyone who was driving through the Notch area of I-93 on Thursday night to please contact us,” said Col. Tim Ludlowe of the New Hampshire State Police.
Col. Ludlowe also warned that the perpetrator or perpetrators are still at large, and that women should be vigilant when traveling on I-93 and I-91, especially at night. He was unable to give out further details of the crime, but stressed the possibility of a connection to the recent murders of Bonnie Duprea, 25, and Alexa Moore, 32. Duprea’s body was discovered earlier this year at the northbound rest area on I-91 between Barnet and Wells River. Moore’s body was found three weeks ago just off the southbound I-91 exit ramp for Bradford.
While Col. Ludlowe would not say why police thought the crimes were connected, he did state: “We do want people to be aware that the person or persons committing these terrible crimes are still at large. We believe women driving alone at night are particularly vulnerable and ask you to take precautions if at all possible.”
New Hampshire State Police and Vermont State Police have now formed a joint task force, according to Ludlowe, including crime scene and profiling experts from the FBI.
No details have been made available regarding the cause of death of any of the three victims, nor have the police disclosed why they believe the deaths are connected. However, the victims are all women, and it has been determined by this newspaper that Moore was traveling alone.
Moore, of Sutton, was driving back from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH, where she works as a radiologist. She was seen by co-worker Eileen Walsh at approximately 5:15 p.m. “Her car was parked two down from me and we waved and said something about the bad weather,” says Walsh.
Moore’s family, including her husband, Justin Moore, and the couple’s two children, alerted police when Moore had not returned home by 10 p.m. and could not be reached on her cell phone. Her body was found the following morning by Tessie Deveraux of Bradford as she drove to work at Farm-Way. “I thought it was old carpeting or a bag of clothes.”
Sweat prickled in Rose’s armpits and this triggered a hot flash. She fanned herself with the newspaper as the heat rushed to her face and scalp, then spread over her chest and torso in a choke-hold. What if, she was thinking, what if it was the young woman in the Littleton gas station? Rose called up the memory, she wanted to be clear so that details did not slip, did not rearrange themselves. She shut her eyes to see the young woman — overweight in her jeans and sweatshirt, her hair was dark, tied back in a messy knot. She’d had a crescent of earrings. That was all.
At the state police, there was now a man at the reception counter. Rose spoke through the glass: “I need to speak with Detective Lieutenant Fornier, please. It’s about the death, the murder in the Notch.”
Fornier provided a no-nonsense shake that Rose reckoned she’d spent some time perfecting. Everything this woman did must be considered in the context of the masculine world in which she operated. She’d be labeled a dyke if she didn’t sleep with a male colleague, and a slut if she did. She could be those things regardless; she was also probably a cunt and a bitch and possibly the object of masturbatory fantasies and, at the same time, deeply respected. Her office was devoid of the personal, not a book, not a photo, not even a coffee mug. She was giving nothing away.
Rose introduced herself, and Fornier gestured to a chair opposite her desk. “Whatcha got, Ms. Monroe?”
Rose told her about the scene at Irving, describing the young woman.
Fornier nodded, took a couple of notes. “And this was what time?”
“1:30, maybe 2 a.m.?”
“What were you doing in Boston?”
“Dinner, with a friend.”
“You usually drive back late like that?”
“No. I don’t usually go to Boston at all.”
“You look familiar. Have we met?”
“I work for Bob Booth. You came to speak with him a few weeks ago.”
“Right. I remember.” Fornier performed a tidy smile. “Now, the Irving gas station in Littleton. So, that was it, just the chit chat about the oil?”
“Yes. And I gave her a twenty. She didn’t have enough money.”
“Did she appear scared, nervous?”
“I asked her if she had anyone to call, you know, to come and get her. But she didn’t seem to.”
“You mean she said that she didn’t or you didn’t see her make a call?”
“I didn’t see her make a call. It was my impression that she didn’t have anyone.”
“What gave you that impression?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if she did have someone, she’d have already called them? She just seemed alone.”
“There was no one with her?”
“Not in the store. Maybe in her car. But I just don’t think so. It’s just… by alone… I mean…” Rose circled back to where she’d started. “She was a young woman who didn’t have anyone to help her out in the middle of the night, not a safe person, she just didn’t.”
“And do you have any memory of someone else, other than the cashier, either in the building, or outside?”
“It was so late, I don’t think so, just her car.”
“You saw her car?”
Rose thought, then shook her head. “I don’t know. It must have been there. I think I would have wondered if I came out and didn’t see another car.”
Had the killer been there? In the deep well of shadows beside the gas station, the glint of headlights, the glint of steel-rimmed glasses? Had he watched Rose walk out, watched the young woman walk out, had he taken his pick?
“Was it her — was she the one who was killed?”
Fornier’s exhale was carefully neutral.
But Rose knew. Her breath rushed out of her. “Did she have kids?”
“I can’t discuss this. Her identity hasn’t been made public yet.”
“If I’d taken her — I could have taken her —”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
Abruptly, Rose stood. “But it does. That’s exactly how it works. If I’d just helped her, taken her where she needed to go, a young woman in trouble, it would have been an hour out of my way, and I had that choice, and I sensed her distress, she didn’
t have anyone and I let her go. And she’s dead. She died in a horrible way.”
Briskly, the cop handed over her card. “Thank you for coming in today, Ms. Monroe. We may be in touch if we have further questions. And give me a call if you remember anything else, anything at all.” Then she was on her phone: “Fornier. Yep. Hi, Bert, about those reports —”
In the hallway, Rose looked properly at the card — the full title: Detective Lieutenant Pamela Fornier, Major Crimes Unit, her phone number, email, the state shield. Even the card was impressive. Rose turned back and pushed open Fornier’s door.
“Is Bob Booth involved in this? Is that why you wanted to speak to him?”
Fornier was cupping the phone, irritated by the interruption. “I can’t discuss an on-going invest—”
“But I work with him,” Rose said briskly. “I want to be safe.”
“Oh, you’re safe from him,” Fornier said.
“Because I’m old?” From the loam of her mind sprouted the phrase, I don’t like old meat.
Fornier regarded her, not quite objectively, for Rose felt a momentary kinship — this tough woman’s particular journey and the choice she’d made to wade into the deep mud of human depravity. What kind of woman — person — did this willingly? Pam Fornier knew what men did to children, what parents did to children, what happened to women on dark roads. She knew the seams of the human body, the ways in. She knew, too, how the perpetrators often got away. Maybe she even saw them walking around, buying coffee, pumping gas, free, due to some legal technicality or recanted testimony or silenced witness. Maybe she thought about those she’d put away and secretly wished them all the pain in the world. Maybe she thought about those she had saved, too stunned and broken to thank her.
