by John Saul
Some grew.
Some failed.
Some simply stagnated, their owners scratching out a living selling everything from crystals to condoms. Inevitably, the Broadway Market became the center of the suddenly bustling neighborhood.
And that afternoon, as Glen wandered from shop to shop and finally settled down to watch the wildly diverse crowd that swirled and eddied around him, he found himself far more fascinated by it all than he would have thought possible.
So fascinated, indeed, that when he finally got home and turned on the television, the local news was just beginning.
Could he really have sat at the market for almost two hours?
It hadn’t seemed like more than an hour.
In fact, it had seemed like even less.
Switching the television off, Glen started up the stairs. Though he’d already slept five extra hours that day, he suddenly felt the need for a nap.
Or at least an escape from the confusion in his mind.
CHAPTER 28
Odds and ends.
It had been an afternoon of odds and ends, just the sort of afternoon Anne Jeffers hated. First, she realized that the most important question she’d intended to ask Mark Blakemoor at lunch had completely slipped her mind when she realized that the detective’s emotions toward her were no longer based purely on business. Then, she wasted twenty minutes vacillating over what message he might get if she called him so soon after their meeting. Finally, she decided to put it off for a while, and went on to other things.
With the rain apparently over for the day, she’d gone in search of Sheila Harrar. At the address Mark Blakemoor had given her, she was told that “Harrar’s on the fourth floor. In the front.” So she trekked up to the fourth floor and found the room, but no trace of Sheila Harrar.
Downstairs, the man behind the desk looked bored when Anne asked if he knew where Sheila Harrar might be. “Look in the square. That’s where they all hang out,” he told her. “She’s an Indian broad,” he added, rolling his eyes, as if his identification of her as a Native American should be enough to explain everything about her.
Saying nothing, Anne left the hotel and walked the two blocks to Pioneer Square, searching for someone who might be Sheila Harrar. Almost to her own surprise, she found Sheila on the second try. Though it was obvious the woman was an alcoholic, it was equally obvious that today she hadn’t been drinking.
“I read your article this morning,” Sheila told her, seeming unsurprised when Anne introduced herself and sat down on the bench next to her. “That’s why I called your house.”
“My house?” Anne asked blankly, wondering if maybe she’d been mistaken and Sheila Harrar was drunk after all.
Sheila appeared puzzled. “Didn’t your husband tell you?” she asked. “Isn’t that why you came looking for me?”
Anne shook her head, explained about the garbled message on her voice mail and how she’d finally tracked Sheila down.
Sheila Harrar’s expression clouded at mention of the police, and her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “The police got no reason to be looking for me,” she said. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“They weren’t looking for you,” Anne reassured her quickly, sensing that the woman was about to bolt. “The detective is a friend of mine, and he was just doing me a favor.”
“’Cause you’re white,” Sheila Harrar grunted.
“I beg your pardon?” Anne asked.
Cynical eyes fixed on her. “He did you a favor ‘cause you’re white. When I wanted them to look for Danny, they didn’t do nothin’.”
Anne knew there was no point in trying to explain to Mrs. Harrar about how many tips had come in on the Kraven killings, how many phone calls there had been from anonymous sources, how many mothers just like Sheila had called the police to report that their children had been murdered by Richard Kraven. There had also been husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers of all sorts, even children calling to report that they were certain Richard Kraven had killed their parents.
“Why do you think Richard Kraven killed your son?” Anne asked instead. At worst, it would give the woman an opportunity finally to tell her story; at best, Sheila Harrar might actually know something that could directly connect Richard Kraven to at least one local murder.
Sheila took Anne back to her room, where she pulled out a worn photo album—one of the last things she still possessed from better days. In the album were yellowing pictures of herself as a girl, then some of her former husband, Manny Harrar. At the end were the pictures of Danny, all of them smudged with fingerprints from the many times Sheila had pulled the album out late at night when she was far into a bottle of fortified wine, and paged through the pictures, touching Danny’s image with as much gentleness as if she were actually stroking his cheek.
What Anne saw was a handsome boy who was always neatly dressed, although the clothes he wore looked nearly worn-out. His hair was always combed, his lips smiling, his eyes sparkling.
Even in the snapshots, Anne could sense the boy’s intelligence. And he didn’t look like the sort who would get involved in drugs or simply take off. Indeed, in the few photographs showing Sheila and Danny together, it was clear that before Danny disappeared, his mother had been a different person. Though they obviously hadn’t had much money, nothing in the photos betrayed anything other than a devoted mother and loving son.
The snapshots alone were enough to convince Anne that Danny Harrar had not run away from home.
“What can you tell me?” she asked. “What happened the last day you saw Danny?”
“He was going fishing,” Sheila told her. “He was going to go fishing with Richard Kraven.”
Fishing.
It was one of Richard Kraven’s passions. He’d had a motor home, and often used it to go up into the mountains, where, according to him, he liked to spend a day in solitude, casting for trout in the roaring streams that poured out of the Cascades. Anne was well aware of how thoroughly that motor home had been searched, for after Kraven had been arrested and charged in Connecticut, the Seattle police had seized the vehicle and nearly torn it apart in a search for evidence that might link Kraven to the long list of murders in which he was the prime suspect.
No trace of any of his known victims had been discovered. What little detritus had been found—a few hairs and traces of lint—had never been matched to anyone. Richard Kraven had either been very lucky or an absolute perfectionist.
Or innocent?
“Did the police ever question Kraven about your son?”
Sheila’s lips tightened into a hard, resentful line. “I don’t think so. They said Danny ran away.”
“Tell me about him,” Anne said.
For most of the afternoon, Sheila talked. Anne listened. What she heard was the story of an ambitious boy, determined to get ahead in the world, determined to right the wrongs that he perceived had been done to his people.
And then one morning he’d gotten up early, taken his fishing pole, and gone to wait for Richard Kraven at a corner near the university where Kraven taught and Danny went to school.
Sheila had never seen him again.
Richard Kraven, when she’d called him, had told her that he knew Danny, that he had indeed had a date to go fishing with Danny, but that when he arrived at the corner to pick Danny up, Danny wasn’t there.
Kraven told her he’d waited a few minutes, but when Danny didn’t show up, he decided the boy must have slept in, and he’d gone on to fish by himself. Sheila Harrar hadn’t believed him then, and when the stories about him—Anne’s stories—started appearing in the Herald, she’d been sure that Kraven had killed Danny. But no one ever listened to her. Not until today, anyway.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Anne said when Sheila Harrar finally fell silent. “It’s been how long since Danny disappeared? Four years?” Sheila nodded miserably. “Do you remember what he was wearing that day?”
Sheila nodded. “What he alw
ays wore. Blue jeans. A plaid shirt. Tennis shoes—not the fancy kind. Danny wouldn’t waste money on those. Just Keds, like when we were kids, you know?”
Anne smiled. “Twenty dollars, ten if they were on sale?”
“Like that, yeah. And he had his fishing rod with him, and his knife.”
“His knife?” Anne echoed.
“A pocketknife, with a turquoise handle,” Sheila told her. “It was something his daddy gave him, before he left. Danny always had it in his pocket.”
Anne glanced around the shabby room that was all Sheila Harrar had left in life. “I wish I could tell you I think you’re wrong about Danny,” she said finally, deciding the one thing Sheila Harrar didn’t need right now was false hope. “But I suspect you’re probably right. The thing about Kraven that no one ever understood was how he picked his victims. There was never a pattern, never a common denominator. Mostly, it just seemed random. And I suppose it really was random, and if he had a chance, there’s no reason why Kraven wouldn’t have killed someone he knew once or twice. In fact, it might even fit with the lack of a pattern.” She reached out and laid her hand on Sheila’s. “But that doesn’t help, does it?”
Sheila shook her head and sighed, but then a faint, rueful smile curved her lips. “You listened,” she said. “That helps. No one else listened—they didn’t even care. It’s better, just knowing someone else knows what happened to Danny, too.”
Wishing there were something she could do for Sheila Harrar, but knowing there wasn’t, Anne went back to her office and continued with the odds and ends of the day.
She called Mark Blakemoor and got the answer to the question she hadn’t asked at lunch.
“Why would there be any progress on Shawnelle Davis?” he asked, his tone clearly implying that he expected better of Anne. “She was a hooker. You know how it is around here when hookers get killed—nobody cares. If nobody cares, I can’t get very far. No time, no cooperation, hardly even any interest. I don’t like it, but I can’t change it.”
And though Anne didn’t like it, either, she understood it. It was just the way of the city, and it wasn’t Mark Blakemoor’s fault.
Still, the killing of Shawnelle Davis bothered her. Though it lacked some of the distinctive features of what Kraven had done, the similarities were still there, whether anyone in the police department wanted to admit it or not. Maybe she should write another follow-up story. If the department wouldn’t pressure itself, maybe she could pressure them.
She was just beginning the outlines of the story when the phone on her desk jangled. Picking it up, she was surprised to hear Joyce Cottrell’s voice.
Joyce was her slightly over-the-hill—and perhaps not completely sane, as far as Anne was concerned—next door neighbor.
“I’ve been trying to get you all afternoon,” Joyce told her. “And I didn’t want to leave a message because—well, you’ll understand when I tell you.”
Anne listened in silence, barely able to believe what she was hearing, as Joyce Cottrell described what she’d seen in the backyard that morning.
“I only saw him for a split second, and he hardly even looked like Glen at all! But who else could it have been? And it wasn’t just that he was naked,” Joyce finished. “It was the way he looked at me. Anne, I can’t tell you how strange it was. It was—well, I don’t know—I’ve always liked Glen, you know that. But the way he looked at me just scared me.” She was silent for a second, then her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Anne, it was just a heart attack, wasn’t it? I mean—well, Glen’s all right, isn’t he?”
Though she assured Joyce that Glen had suffered only a heart attack and hadn’t secretly been in the psycho ward at Harborview, when Anne hung up the phone, she felt a lot more frightened than she’d let Joyce know.
CHAPTER 29
The house no longer felt the same. Yet as she let herself in the front door late that afternoon, Anne Jeffers couldn’t have said exactly how it felt different. All her journalistic training told her that the sudden frisson she felt as she turned the key, the surge of anxiety that chilled her as she stepped into the hallway’s silence, was ridiculous: it wasn’t the house that felt different at all—it was she who felt different. It had started yesterday, when Glen made love to her and she’d felt as if a stranger had been touching her.
An exciting stranger, granted, but still a stranger. It had disturbed her, although by this afternoon she had all but assured herself that if anything truly strange had occurred, it had been mostly in her own mind. She had been worried about Glen, uncertain whether they should be making love, despite what Gordy Farber told them, and so the sheer energy Glen had shown struck her as being—well, disturbing.
Even more disturbing had been the phone call from Joyce Cottrell. From the moment she’d hung up the phone, Anne was telling herself that whatever Joyce might think she’d seen, she must be mistaken.
Assuming she’d seen anything. After all, hadn’t she and Glen been speculating for years that Joyce was a secret drinker, sitting alone in the big old house next door where both her parents had died, tippling gin in the false and empty comfort of a darkened room? It had only been speculation, of course, but if it turned out they were right, it would certainly explain the peculiar phone call Joyce had made to her. Probably nothing had happened at all. Or maybe, taking advantage of Glen’s presence at home in the middle of the day, Joyce made a pass at him, was rebuffed, and had been trying to extract some kind of warped revenge.
Now, though, all Anne’s rationales were crumbling around her in the too-silent foyer. Something had changed in this house. “Hello?” she called out. “Anyone home?”
“I’m up here.” Heather’s voice echoed from the second floor, muffled by the closed door to her room.
Dropping her gritchel onto the table by the foot of the stairs, Anne took the steps two at a time, knocked once on Heather’s door, and pushed it open at almost the same second she heard her daughter telling her to come in.
Heather was sitting at her desk, a math book open in front of her, a badly gnawed pencil clutched in her fingers.
“I thought you promised to quit chewing those things,” Anne said, sliding automatically into mother mode, and knowing even as she did that mostly it was a way to put off her half-formed anxieties for at least a minute or two.
“I’m trying,” Heather sighed. “I just don’t think about it. It’s hard to stop doing something you don’t even know you’re doing.”
“I know,” Anne agreed. “But it’s still going to ruin your teeth.” She moved farther into the room, lifting the window to let some fresh air in. “Where’s your dad?” Anne hoped the question sounded casual, and when Heather spoke without looking up from the equation she was laboring over, she thought she’d succeeded.
“Taking a nap, I guess. The door to your room was closed when I got home, and I didn’t even knock.” Finally she glanced up, her eyes falling on the clock on her nightstand. “Is it really six already?”
“It’s six.” Anne sighed. “I better go wake your father up. I assume no one’s started figuring out anything for dinner yet?” Heather shook her head. “And where’s Kevin?”
“He said he was going over to Justin’s, and he promised to be home by five-thirty.” Reading the look in her mother’s eye, which clearly said, Do I have to do everything around here? Heather got up from her desk. “I’ll call the Reynoldses and find out where he is. And why don’t I call Dino’s and order pizza for dinner? That way you don’t have to worry about it.”
Anne hesitated. It was tempting, but then she remembered Gordy Farber’s admonition about Glen’s diet. Was pizza on the recommended list for heart attack patients? Somehow she doubted it. “Let me go wake up your dad, then we’ll see,” Anne temporized, telling herself it wasn’t too late to run down to the Safeway and pick up something healthy, but suspecting that in the end they’d probably all wind up going out somewhere instead. As Heather went downstairs to call Justin Reynolds, Anne went to t
he closed door of the master bedroom and found herself hesitating before going inside.
But what was she expecting?
It was Glen, for God’s sake!
Abruptly feeling foolish, Anne pushed open the door and went inside. The shades were drawn and the room was stuffy, and when she switched on the lamp on Glen’s side of the bed, he immediately came awake, sat up, and shielded his eyes against the glare. For a second—no more than an instant, really—Anne had the unsettling sense that she was looking into the eyes of a stranger. Then it was over. Glen’s eyes cleared and he smiled at her—the same smile she’d known for years, the smile that had always reassured her that everything in her world was intact.
“Hey,” he said. “Come here and give me a hug, okay?”
