Hope flared. “Kari, hi.”
It wasn’t the friendly tone I’d so wanted to hear. “Okay, so you just can’t call me up after so long and not tell me anything about your life. You didn’t ask anything about me. I know…knew you so well. I can’t believe you’ve changed so much you don’t care.”
A lump climbed my throat. “I care.”
She sniffed. “I miss you. Yeah, I’m pissed that your mom wrecked my career and that you seemed to discard me. But, damn, Jamie. We were friends and that means something to me.”
“Tell me. Please.”
She talked for a few minutes about her husband, and how they’d gone through therapy and it seemed to take. How her three-year old son kept her busy, and questioning what she was thinking having a kid in her forties.
I tried to sound upbeat and chipper and told her about Tucson and the Rangers.
It was clear that life had moved on without me, as it should. My old partner now had a family. My ex-husband and his new wife. I’d taken myself out of Buffalo. Other than that, I strove to maintain some kind of regular existence. Changing and growing seemed insurmountable. I couldn’t alter what I cared most about, but I was determined to do some good in the world.
When I felt we’d made an effort to catch up, I brought it back around. “Did you get the file and the evidence?”
“After you called Sunday I got curious. Back then, I’d wanted the case solved, mostly for you, so I didn’t question it much when Grainger King confessed and was convicted. But I decided to look it up, even though I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Thank you. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me.”
“Can you send me a digital copy of the file and pictures of the evidence?”
Kari hesitated and a dragonfly flitted over the pool and dipped low for a drink. “This is the strangest thing. I expected a thick file because so many people care about you, and because of your mom’s position. I knew Granger King had been picked up at the scene of a rape/murder about a week after….” She didn’t seem to be able to bring herself to say the name. “There were lots of witnesses and a solid case against him.”
I pushed through the French doors and opened the drawer with the ribbon and necklace. My fingers ran over the rough polyester of the ribbon. “Mom told me he’d been linked to at least three murders. He confessed to all of them. I need to know what he said about this case.”
We fell into our old rhythm with no barriers between us. “I remember he died not long after he confessed to all the other murders.”
“So there’s no way anyone can question him.” The silver of the runner charm glimmered from the bottom of the drawer.
“It seems strange now, but I didn’t think about it then. I was relieved you wouldn’t have to go through a drawn-out process.”
“And now?”
She paused. “Now I think about it, it’s wonky. Because his other attacks were random in a park. But this one was in a home.”
“Did you have a chance to read the file? What’s it say?”
“That’s the weird thing.”
I fingered the ribbon, a chill shooting up my spine. “What’s the weird thing?”
“There’s no record of the evidence being logged.”
That couldn’t be. “But there was a hair elastic and necklace, her clothes…I don’t know what all. It will mention that in the file.”
“No evidence box. And the really bizarre thing is that there is no file on her… the incident. And Grainger King’s file is missing.”
40
So anxious for Mom to leave, and now I couldn’t wait for her to return. How could every trace of the investigation be missing? She must have them somewhere. Maybe she had doubts, too. She could have the files and evidence box in her office to study them. But then, she’d have checked them out and there would be a paper trail.
I paced my front walk. Come home. Come home. The sun, so pleasant in the shade of the backyard, blistered my face.
When the sound of a car started down the street heading my way, I stopped at the top of the driveway and waited.
A cop cruiser appeared and pulled into the driveway. Rafe climbed out of the car and with slow steps made his way toward me. His face had a closed look, sharp as a hatchet.
Rafe stopped in front of me and locked his eyes on mine. I’d seen those same eyes smile from inside him, welcome me. There was none of that warmth now. A steely gaze, cold, despite their deep brown. “You need to tell me what happened Thursday night. After you saw Cali with the guy at the park.”
The grumblings escalated.
My skin itched. “I left the ball park after my shift, came home. Was home all night. Alone.”
His calm cracked. “I want to help you. But if you keep lying, I can’t do anything.”
Zoey’s dead.
Cali’s dead.
You killed them.
Why didn’t he believe me? “Lying about what?”
He retreated to his cool attitude. “What do you know about Cali Shaw and her whereabouts?”
Whereabouts. No one talks like that in real life. Ice ran through the crevices between my bones. My breath burned. “Did you find her?”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed as if he struggled to keep from shouting. Rage rolled off him with such force I could almost smell sulphur. “Quit messing with me.”
The cacophony inside me made it impossible to answer for several seconds. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”
“Damn it. Why won’t you let me help you?”
The scene flashed in front of me.
Dead. Her blonde hair streaked with mud and blood. Purple bruises ringing her neck. Her fingernails broken, face swollen. Legs splayed, clothes ripped and missing.
Peanut wailed, but she was only one of so many voices.
“Rafe.” I heard myself whisper. “Did you find her?”
“Her car.”
There was hope. “But not her? She’s still out there. We’ve got time. Where was it? Did you find any clues in it? You believe me now, don’t you? She’s missing.”
“Oh, I believe she’s missing.”
Good. “I called my old partner in Buffalo. We haven’t put it together yet but I know there’s a connection. My mother is here and she’s the county sheriff. She might remember something helpful. We’ll find Cali.”
“This definitely has something to do with you.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. Did you find some evidence in the car?”
“Yes, we found evidence.”
If I knew what the other evidence box contained, I could probably tell him what they’d find, but it didn’t matter. Whatever the killer left, we could use it to find him. “What is it?”
He flattened his lips and skewered me with his eyes. “Your Rangers badge.”
41
I sank to the bench on my porch. Heat from the metal burned through my shorts and the sun drilled into my forehead. The voices took over, so many wanting me to stab my eyes, bash my head against the house, take a swing at Rafe. Others shouting and cursing. Frank saying over and over, “You moron. You moron.”
Rafe watched me. I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough my thighs felt numb on the hard metal. He came into focus.
I batted at the confusion and focused on my badge in the car. “How could that happen?”
“You tell me.”
A fuzzy thought started at the base of my spine and grew clearer. I’d been upset after the baseball game and took a pill to get through the afternoon and night. I awoke in my chair. The hours in between were a blank, like so many in the last few years.
No. I didn’t take a pill that night. I took one the next day. Or did I?
I might have been the last person to see Zoey Clark before she went missing. Driving home from the high school the day I’d grabbed Megan, right before Kaycee went missing. I’d lost over an hour. Now my badge missing.
Frank laughed so hard a shooting pain slashed through m
y brain.
I jumped up from the bench and jetted into the house. To my bedroom and jerked open the closet door. My uniform blouse hung where it usually did. I whipped it out. No badge. I spun around and scanned my room.
Rafe stood in the doorway. “What are you doing?”
The killer was here.
Zoey’s dead.
Cali’s dead.
“Someone must have been here. In my house.” The smell of lilacs wasn’t an illusion. Someone had dropped the blossom in my pool. They’d been here.
Rafe didn’t say anything but I knew he didn’t believe me.
I didn’t have much in my bedroom, but what I did have looked exactly the same as always.
Rafe took in the room, his eyebrows dropping in concern. White walls, no rug on the floor. The bed with no headboard. The dresser with only the malachite sphere. Nothing on the walls, no pictures on the bedside table. If there had been so much as a crucifix over the bed, it would have seemed an upgrade to a nun’s cell.
I spun away and rushed into the open space of the living, dining room, and kitchen. Frantic with my need to know. The painting above the mantle didn’t give me peace. The other touches Mom added all maintained their natural places. That’s when I saw it.
“It’s gone.” I think I shouted it, but it might have been someone inside my head. I ran to the table under the window that looked onto the porch. This is where I allowed three pictures of her. Her baby face smiled at me from where she stood in the bathtub, her fingers clutching a blue plastic block, her toothless grin full of mischief. The photo with of all of us on Mother’s Day when she wore her favorite red polka dot dress. And the photo with her arms thrust in victory seconds after winning the 4X400 relay.
The track picture was missing. In her team uniform. Like Cali’s cheerleader uniform. “He stole a picture.”
Rafe came closer and bent to see the two remaining. He picked up the Mother’s Day photo. “My God. She looks just like Cali Shaw and Zoey Clark. Who is it?”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I closed my eyes and tried again. “Bethany.” The word sounded like the granite of a gravestone. “My daughter.”
Rafe studied the photo a second and realization dawned. “The case that mirrors Cali’s. It’s your daughter.”
I couldn’t even nod.
“You’re saying someone knows the details of your daughter’s murder. They kidnapped Cali because she looks like your daughter. They planted evidence similar to what was discovered in that case. Then they broke into your house and stole your badge, left it in Cali’s abandoned car. And all of this set-up for what purpose?”
“REVENGE!” Frank’s shout made me flinch.
Rafe caught my reaction because he frowned at me, as if listening for the voice only I heard.
I plodded to the living room and sank to the couch. “I don’t know.”
Rafe stood by the table, with Bethany’s photo still in his hand. “I want to believe you, but you’re not helping me.”
Without thought, I planted my hand on the arm of the sofa, wanting to draw comfort from the red hoodie always draped there. My hand landed on the soft cushion of the couch. “No. Oh, no. He took it! He took it!” The hysteria crept higher and higher into my brain.
Rafe looked alarmed. “What did he take?”
I jumped up and scurried to the entryway. Did I have it in my hand when the little girls barged in? Did they take it? No, I’d walked them across the street and we’d held hands. Would Mom have put it somewhere? No, if she’d seen it, she would have climbed all over me about hanging on to painful memories.
It took no time to speed around the rooms, checking every surface, every place I might have draped or dropped it. My heart raced, as in those seconds, minutes when I’d discovered her missing.
I relived calling hello as I enter the front door. No answer. Her geometry book open on the table. Pages scattered. Hot Tamales all over the floor. Running to her bedroom, to the living room. Not in bed. Not watching TV. To my room. To the guest room. Kitchen. Garage. Back yard. Finally screaming, running down the sidewalk.
A hand clasped onto my arm and I looked up into Rafe’s concerned face. “Slow down. What’s missing?”
“The hoodie! Her hoodie. It’s gone.”
I yanked my arm away because the voices clanged and roared. I backed into a corner of the kitchen and closed my eyes, slowly taking charge of my own head.
I didn’t care if I mumbled out loud. “I’m Jamie Butler. I’m Amanda’s daughter. I’m a retired Buffalo cop. I live in Tucson.” I ran through my rosary at least three times
When I opened my eyes again, Rafe stood in the same place, wearing the same worried look. “Are you okay?”
“Sort of.” Shaky, I flipped open a cabinet and pulled out two tall glasses. I filled them with ice from the refrigerator door and reached inside for sliced lemon. With both glasses full and starting to bead, I led Rafe into the living room and set the glasses on the coffee table. I lowered myself to one corner of the couch and invited him to sit on the other.
My foot jiggled on the floor, hating to waste time explaining. But Rafe wouldn’t help me if I didn’t confide in him.
He waited and the silence built between us while I quieted the crowd inside. He didn’t say anything throughout this process. The only one I know who could rival Tara in patience with me.
Against Frank’s direct orders, and not sure it was for the best, the time had come to tell Rafe the truth. I swallowed a cold flush of water, concentrated on the tang of the lemon and drew a long, deep breath. “I hear voices.”
By now I’d learned his seemingly impassive face was an impressive mask for intense emotions. Right now, he might have been a mannequin. “It started when your daughter was taken?”
I studied the glass in my hand. The hoodie. I couldn’t lose the only connection I had with Bethany. Mom had taken away everything else in her belief that hanging on to her possessions would cause me pain. “That’s when they got bad. I’ve heard them all my life, as long as I can remember. Most of my life there was one voice. A loving, kind of mothering voice. Somewhere along the line she told me her name is Maggie.”
I sipped, gathering my thoughts and quieting Frank’s insistence that I throw the glass at Rafe. “My mother pushed me pretty hard. She loves me, but I wasn’t everything she wanted.”
Rafe shrugged. “Children are their own people, always.”
My foot continued to jiggle, keeping time to my urgency. “Mom’s father was an alcoholic and her mother never stood up to him or took charge. According to Mom, she raised herself. I never met my grandparents. They were out of Mom’s life by the time I was born. I understood why she wanted so much for me. It was because she never had any attention or help growing up.”
Rafe didn’t comment but he looked skeptical.
I took a long drink of cold water, letting it ease the tension in my throat. My foot still vibrated. “Anyway, Maggie told me all the things Betty Crocker would tell her daughter. She said I was pretty and nice and it didn’t matter if I won the medals as long as I had a good time. Most of the time, Maggie was the only voice I heard and that was no problem. Sometimes, if I got stressed, I’d hear a crowd—I don’t know, maybe a dozen? They’d whisper and grumble, but nothing too awful and I mostly ignored it.”
I paused, and when he didn’t scoff, I continued. “After Bethany’s death, Frank arrived.”
Rafe hadn’t touched his water. “I don’t understand, what do you mean ‘he arrived’?”
“I followed Mom when they told her they’d found a clue. Out to a junk yard. Rainy and muddy. Mother’s Day.” The hoodie. All of Bethany I had left.
“Mother’s Day.” He understood the significance.
Warm tears cascaded down my face and I gulped my water and rocked against the couch before I could continue.
“Frank showed up and, according to Mom, I went crazy. He ordered me to grab a broken hood ornament and stab myself. And I did. I don’t
remember much of the next several months. A lot of drugs. But as I slowly came back, I heard more voices than I’d ever had. Frank is the most vocal and can be mean, not so violent any more, but he has moments. I won’t bore you with all the names. But there is a group I call the Chorus.” We need to go. We need to go.
Rafe shook his head. “This is incredible.”
My smile cracked my lips. “They are like wind chimes inside. They are rarely silent but often they’re a soft tinkle I’ve come to accept. When they feel threatened or offended, they swell and when it gets really bad, they can sound like a church bell in my ears.”
Remember. Remember.
“How did you get better?”
“Therapy. Lots of therapy. And Mom. She got me away from all the stress. She took care of Bethany’s funeral and her things. All the messy parts of death. She found a great facility and wonderful doctors. Healing started by me having conversations with the voices. Take Frank, who wanted me to hurt myself or others. I had to learn that was his way of warning me to dangers and my fears.”
Rafe’s water glass ran and pooled on the table. “That’s crazy. Well. Sorry. I mean—.”
“No, you’re right. It is crazy. I’m not, though. I understand the voices are parts of me. But they are real. As real as your voice in this room. They have weight and texture. It’s not like talking to yourself. I am not thinking them. I am hearing them. With my ears.”
“Are you hearing them now?”
I nodded.
He seemed curious. “What are they saying?”
Cali. The hoodie. My badge. Cali. “Frank thinks you’re a moron. That’s okay, because he thinks I’m a moron, too. He wants me to throw you out and is really indignant that I’m dictating his words to you now. The Chorus is about mid-to-high range now. They are still upset about the badge, the break-in, and especially the hoodie.”
Peanut shrieked and cried when I mentioned the sweatshirt. She obviously wanted to be heard but I couldn’t tell Rafe about her.
“How does that feel, when they…talk to you?”
The Desert Behind Me Page 22
