Fragile

by Lisa Unger

  But the thought of leaving him had filled her with sorrow; so she’d stayed. And eventually a new marriage had unfolded. It was not as light and full of romance as it had been before Ricky. But there was something more true, more solid about loving someone through change. She thought maybe when marriage survives that shift from romance through friendship to partnership, it’s stronger. Maybe that’s when you go from being a couple to being a family.

  “This search is more about you than it is about him. You realize that, right?”

  He shut the lid on the trash can and turned to face her. He stripped the gardening gloves from his hands, put them on the workbench by the door. She’d bought the bench and a full set of tools for him two years ago. Once upon a time, he’d liked working with his hands, building shelves and things for the house… a coffee table, an Adirondack chair, a curio cabinet for the upstairs guest room. It brought him some kind of peace. When they’d learned about his high cholesterol and he’d started experiencing tightness in his chest, Maggie thought that it would help to get back to that old hobby, that it might lower his stress level. Everything still hung gleaming on its designated hook. He’d never touched it.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” he said.

  “It’s about your desire to control rather than to have faith.”

  “Faith?” He practically spat the word, as if it tasted bad in his mouth. “What, like faith in God? Faith in the universe?”

  She shook her head, released a disgusted breath. “Faith in our son. That we’ve taught him well, that he’s a good person. That he’d never hurt anyone’s feelings, never mind hurt anyone physically.”

  Something sad flashed across her husband’s face, and she felt a flood of relief. He’d heard her. He buried his face in his hands. She moved closer to him and put a hand on his arm.

  “He’s always been a good boy, Jones,” she said. “And he’s grown into a good man. You should have seen him tonight-strong, articulate, sincere. He’s just like his father.”

  When he took his hands away from his face, his expression was so haunted and strange, she almost took a step back from him. She felt a black flower of dread open inside her.

  “Jones. What is it?”

  Then the doorbell was ringing and he moved away from her quickly. By the time she’d followed him to the door, he was shouldering on his jacket. Chuck was standing in the foyer, the dark circles under his eyes that she’d noticed earlier looking deeper. There was a ketchup stain on the collar of his barn jacket. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday.

  “What’s going on?”

  Chuck looked at the ceiling above her. She followed his eyes to that hairline crack that always bothered her.

  “A lead of sorts,” he said. “Might be nothing.”

  She thought Jones might leave without saying anything to her, but instead he walked back and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  “Jones.”

  “Keep looking,” he whispered, and then he was gone.

  “You should have gone over there right away,” said Jones, climbing into the passenger seat of the vehicle. He didn’t let the other guys drive him, but he didn’t mind riding shotgun with Chuck for some reason.

  “It didn’t seem like a priority.” Chuck’s tone was easy, not defensive. “Strout saw what he saw. There didn’t seem to be much else to it until I had other information.”

  “You could have talked to the neighbors. Maybe someone else saw or heard something.”

  Chuck gave an affirming nod. “It didn’t seem important at the time.”

  They sat in the driveway, the car idling.

  “What did seem important then? What other information?” Jones asked, rubbing at his eyes. He was so tired that his vision was blurry. His chest felt tight and uncomfortable again. He shouldn’t have had that double cheeseburger at lunch. It was not on the diet recommended by his doctor.

  Chuck didn’t look like he felt much better. In the light shining from over the garage, he looked pasty and gray. They were both too old to be pulling all-nighters.

  “After Strout left, I got access to Charlene Murray’s Facebook account and her e-mail. Her friend Britney had the log-in and passwords. She remembered she had them written in an old notebook, searched through and found them, gave me a call.”

  “And?”

  “I found a message that Charlene wrote, the last one on her account, asking Marshall Crosby if he could meet her on Hydrangea and Persimmon. She told him she needed a ride. This confirms what Strout saw.”

  The news gave Jones a little rush of energy. He felt some strange combination of relief and dread.

  “That was her last communication?”

  “Yeah. After that, no other messages. If you don’t count those status bar updates.”

  “Was there a message back from Marshall?”

  “No.” Chuck held back a sneeze by squeezing his nose. He reached into the pocket of his coat for a tissue that looked overused already.

  “So we don’t know if he read it,” Jones said.

  “No, but we do know his father owns a green 1968 Chevelle.”

  Jones knew that car well. Why hadn’t he thought about it before? Travis had been very proud of it, showing it off in the parking lot the day he got it a couple of years ago, taking some of the girls for a ride. But it was always in the shop with this problem or that. Just the other day, Jones had seen Marshall sitting in the driver’s seat, idling in front of the grocery store. Travis came out with a grocery sack that looked like it contained only a six-pack, climbed into the passenger seat.

  Ricky drove a 1966 Pontiac GTO. It was a similar color; the body type might look like the Chevelle to someone who didn’t know about cars, but their GTO was mint; Jones knew that for a fact. For Ricky’s birthday last year, they’d researched the purchase together and finally driven to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to pick up the car from a guy who restored them for a living, just like Jones’s uncle had.

  Jones remembered how excited he’d been about his Mustang when he’d turned sixteen. He could see that same thrill in his son. The guy who sold it to them had a few piercings, too. So Jones hadn’t felt self-conscious about Ricky’s hair and getup. It had been a good day for the two of them. They’d had fun, no fighting at all. It was the only day like that he could remember since Ricky had reached adolescence.

  “How’s the transmission on the GTO?” Chuck asked. His tone was light, his attitude carefully casual.

  “It’s in good shape,” Jones said quickly. “We just had it in for a tune-up last week. Everything in that car is brand-new.”

  That’s why he came here instead of calling, Jones thought. That’s why he came here before going to Crosby’s or to check out the area where Strout spotted Charlene. Jones just wasn’t sure whether Chuck had come out of loyalty or suspicion. He was sure Chuck had inspected the driveway before even ringing the bell.

  Chuck rubbed his sinuses. “Good.”

  Jones told Chuck a little bit about Marshall Crosby, about his problems, some of the things Maggie had told him, like the status bar update. Marshall thinks bad people should be punished.

  “When Charlie Strout left a message about the fluid on the street, I thought I’d go check it out after I stopped by the Crosby house to talk to Marshall.”

  “Let’s split up,” said Jones. He reached for the door and pushed it open. “Get in touch with Katie, have her get a sample of that fluid. You go talk to Strout again. Knock on doors around the neighborhood.”

  “Okay.” Chuck wiped his nose again.

  “What was your read on him?” asked Jones.

  “Strout? He seemed okay. A little jumpy. I ran a check on him. He’s squeaky clean, not even an outstanding parking ticket.”

  Jones stepped back out of the car and closed the door. Chuck rolled down the window.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. “Strout can wait, right? Katie can get the sample without me.�
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  He had that look, as if Jones had asked him to fetch the water when he was good enough to pitch. They both knew Chuck deserved to go to the Crosby house. It was the more compelling lead, especially now that they had the information Maggie had provided, combined with the message Chuck had found. And really Chuck had been doing all the heavy lifting since Charlene disappeared. But Jones just couldn’t give it to him. If one of the Crosbys was involved in this, Jones needed to know first.

  He knew Chuck would do what he was asked; that was one of the things he liked best about the guy. The younger detectives were all so full of themselves, mimicking attitudes and things they heard on television, always wanting the job to be something that it wasn’t, always mouthing off like there was a camera rolling somewhere. Chuck was a real cop, a quiet and careful observer, with an eye for detail and an ear for lies.

  “I’ll call you if I need you,” said Jones.

  Chuck opened his mouth, then snapped it into a tight line. “Okay,” he said.

  The light snowfall had stopped as quickly as it began, nothing accumulating, though the driveway looked glassy and slick. Jones stepped carefully to his vehicle and waited for Chuck to pull out of the driveway, then followed him until their paths diverged at the next intersection.

  20

  Something woke Elizabeth, suddenly and totally. She sat up quickly, her heart thumping, senses straining. What was it? The familiar shapes of the room revealed themselves in the dark, the mirror over her dresser, the posts of her bed, the rolltop desk in the corner, the wing chair and ottoman. She pushed back the covers and reached for the light. The cane she had balanced on the nightstand clattered to the floor.

  With the light on, she saw the mirror’s reflection of a frightened old woman in a silly nightgown with frills at the cuffs and neck, little flowers everywhere. And she was about to have a chuckle at herself when the thumping began, startling her again.

  “Hell’s bells.”

  She tried to reach her cane from the bed, but it was just out of her grasp. So she lowered her feet to the cold wood floor and steadied herself on the night table, using it to push herself back upright, not without a considerable amount of pain. It took a moment, once she was standing, for the pain to pass. And after it was gone, she felt quite exhausted by it. Maggie was right. She’d been foolish not to let someone know about her fall. But she couldn’t stand the humiliation of it all-the prodding and poking at the doctor’s office, the pitying looks.

  Again she heard the thumping. It was louder, more frantic than it had been, like something trapped, something panicked. She slid her feet into her slippers.

  “That’s it,” she said. She knew she should call Maggie or Jones and have someone come get her. When Maggie had offered to bring her home earlier, she had wanted to say, Yes! I don’t want to be in this old house with all its memories and critters in the attic. But instead she’d been stubborn and even a little rude. Maggie had left angry with her, she knew.

  When Elizabeth was a younger woman, she used to wish to grow older. She wished for the gravitas and respect she thought would be awarded naturally with age. She thought there would be a freedom in no longer worrying about pointless things like your figure or your hair-older people didn’t worry about those things, did they? Surely not. And it was true that she didn’t worry about those things anymore. When your hair was shocking white and your face looked like a raisin, only the most foolish and vain women still pretended that anything they wore or did to themselves would give them any sexual allure.

  But what she hadn’t realized was that this imaginary respect she craved was only granted to older men. She hadn’t understood that when her body started to weaken and sag, when her beauty faded, she would become invisible. That people would treat her like a child again, without the kindness that is generally extended to children. Doctors, checkout clerks at the grocery, even some of her former students, even Jones and Maggie, sometimes spoke to her either loudly and slowly, as though she were hearing-impaired, or with a kind of brave patience, as if she were terribly tiresome or very slow to comprehend. The only one who didn’t occasionally treat her like a doddering old biddy was her grandson.

  If she’d known how old age really was, she’d have appreciated her strong body and attractive features, the small amount of respect her job had afforded her, while it all lasted.

  Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthump. Thumpthump. Thump.

  She walked out of her room and stood a moment beneath the attic access. She hadn’t been up there in years, sending Jones or Ricky up when she needed this or that-an old painting of her husband’s that she’d suddenly remembered and wanted to see again, some photo albums, a lace tablecloth her mother had made. She reached up with her cane and nabbed the loop with its crook. With a two-handed effort, she pulled down the door, the ladder unfolding easily and coming to the floor with a gentle thud.

  Now the house was perfectly silent as the attic exhaled a breath of mold and mothballs, decades of abandoned and forgotten things. It might be nice to see some of the things up there-her wedding dress, some old records. What else? She didn’t even know. She stared at the yawning darkness above her and couldn’t help but think about her secret.

  “I’ve had enough,” she announced to whatever had decided to make its home up there.

  She stood her cane against the wall and climbed the ladder slowly. What did she intend to do once she was up there? she suddenly wondered. With that thought, about halfway up, the pain began, a rocket from her hip down the back of her thigh. It took her breath away, left her clinging to the ladder rungs.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  She looked up and half expected to see her visitors peering at her from the dark doorway, eyes gleaming at her stupidity. But no, there was nothing, just that gaping emptiness reaching into the past. She wasn’t more than a few feet off the ground, but she felt paralyzed, frozen-afraid of the pain, afraid of losing her grip and falling again. But already she was starting to shake with the effort of holding herself in place.

  Thump. Thump.

  When she finally lost her grip, she slid more than fell to the floor, where she lay for a moment before she started to cry. She thought of all the things Maggie had wanted-to bring Elizabeth to her house, to get Elizabeth a bracelet with a button to press if she fell. All things she’d refused, stubborn with her own pride. Now there wasn’t as much pain as regret.

  The cane stood against the wall. If she could reach it, maybe she could pull herself up. But her limbs suddenly felt full of sand, so she just rested her head on her arm and let the tears come.

  It seemed like a hundred years ago that Elizabeth had gone to see Tommy Delano, left work early to drive the hour and a half to the facility where he was being held until his sentencing hearing. She didn’t-couldn’t, really-tell anyone where she was going. The parents of her students wouldn’t have liked it. And even she had to admit that it would have been unseemly. He’d already been tried and convicted in the minds of all the citizens of The Hollows, thanks to Chief Crosby blabbing to everyone who’d listen about the boy’s gruesome and depraved confession. There was no room for compassion or sympathy where Tommy Delano was concerned. He was a confessed child killer. End of the worst story told in The Hollows.

  But it wasn’t some grand capacity for sympathy or compassion that compelled her to drive out of town, to take the highway four exits and cover the desolate miles to a squat gray building in the middle of nowhere surrounded by razor wire, its perimeter guarded by armed men in turrets.

  The thing was that she’d always really liked Tom, which was not something she could say about all of her students. He was a skinny kid, with a drawn face and watery brown eyes. His clothes, always the wrong size, cuffs ending at his forearms or hems dragging on the floor, were never quite clean. He was a straight-C student, though Elizabeth suspected he could do better. He wasn’t funny or charming. But he had a sweet smile, spoke in soft, respectful tones. When she looked at him, she saw kindness, som
ething purely good, even a quiet, twinkling sense of humor.

  Once, many years before Sarah’s murder, when Tommy had been a student at Hollows High, she’d driven him home. So terrified had he been of the bullies on his bus, that he’d lingered until the bus was gone.

  “Dad,” she’d overheard him say from the pay phone in the school office. “I had detention and missed the late bus.” She knew he hadn’t had detention.

  “Okay. I’ll wait in the library. I’m sorry, Dad. Yes. I’m sorry.”

  She just couldn’t reconcile the boy who’d rather tell his father he had detention than ride the bus with bullies with the image of Sarah’s killer, the knowledge of what had been done to her.

  “I’ll speak to those boys,” she’d told him as she drove him that late afternoon to save his father the trip. It was right on her way.

  “No,” he’d said quickly. “Please, Mrs. Monroe. You’ll just make it worse.”

  She’d stared at the road ahead, not knowing what to say to that.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Monroe. But there’s really nothing you can do. It’s just the way it is.”

  Of course, that was years before Sarah’s murder. A lot can happen to a person in a decade. Maybe a lifetime of torment and misery, the festering wounds left by his mother’s death, could transform a timid, quiet person into a killer. But she just couldn’t see it. Could she have been that wrong about him?

  At the prison, she’d waited alone in a gray, cold room before Tommy appeared behind the glass in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed. When he sat, the guard who’d escorted him removed his handcuffs. Tommy looked at her with a sad, confused frown.

  “Fifteen minutes,” the guard said.

  Each picked up a receiver.

  “Mrs. Monroe, what are you doing here?”

  What was she doing here? Coming had been a foolish thing to do. Had she come to ask him if he’d really killed Sarah? Had she come to prove herself right about him? To prove that she really did recognize the difference between good and bad? She found herself at a loss for words, stared down at her wedding ring and twisted it for a second.