Lie in Plain Sight
Page 6
She backed away from the door and let Judy through. After counting to ten and getting her breathing back to normal, she left the office and walked down the hall, her clogs making a squeaking noise in her wake, sounding like it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault, following her all the way to the asphalt of the parking lot.
Maeve drove through town, up and down village streets, not sure what she was looking for, not sure what she was hoping to find. She drove past Cal’s, where she saw an unfamiliar car parked out front, no sign of Gabriela’s little red sports car, a completely impractical Audi TT that fit Gabriela, her giant purse, and nothing else. It was a weekday; she was at work. Cal was alone during the week, sometimes until late into the evening when Gabriela had a photo shoot to oversee or a magazine layout to finalize before she went home. As Cal often said, “That damned magazine doesn’t print itself.”
No, but it kept them in that gorgeous Tudor and him as a stay-at-home dad with far too much time on his hands. Maeve noticed that he, too, had a sign on his front lawn beseeching someone, anyone, to call the police with a tip regarding Taylor’s whereabouts, where she had last been seen. She pulled over to the curb a few feet down from his house and kept an eye on the front door in the side-view mirror, wondering just who Cal Callahan was entertaining at a little after three in the afternoon. The car wasn’t a minivan, and a quick glance as she had driven by indicated that there was no car seat in the back of the beat-up Honda Accord, so her curiosity was piqued.
She would put nothing past him, but prayed, nonetheless, that whoever was in the house was giving him an estimate on new tile for the front foyer or fixing a wonky toilet, one that had been running at all hours of the night, disturbing the beauty sleep of Mrs. Callahan #2, a woman far more likely than she had ever been to take him to task for falling down on the job of crossing off chores on the honey-do list.
Maeve scrolled through her phone, looking for something besides an online order to occupy her time. A sexy text from Chris. A funny joke from Jo. But there was nothing except Donna Fitzpatrick’s plea for an extra dozen cupcakes, same color frosting, please, and an e-mail from Maeve’s heating company informing her that this winter, her oil bill was going to go up considerably.
She put her phone away and watched Cal’s front door for movement. Finally, after fifteen minutes, a quarter hour in which Maeve wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep or not, the door opened and a woman came out.
Maeve wondered what business Trish Dvorak might have with Cal.
CHAPTER 10
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said, as they lay together on the sofa in her living room. Maeve had made sure that Heather was at the library before allowing things to go as far as they had.
“I missed you.” She wriggled out from under him, grabbing her wine glass from the coffee table. “I have to be honest: I don’t really like Detective Chris Larsson.”
“Sometimes, I don’t like him either,” he said. “He’s kind of serious.”
“And sort of scary.”
“Really? Scary?” He seemed proud of that. “How so?”
She wasn’t kidding. “Do you really want to go there?” They were having a nice time; did he really want to hear that she was disappointed in the way he had handled Judy’s lie, even if he didn’t immediately know that it wasn’t the truth? Did he want to know that what she expected in a partner was complete trust in what she said, a lone sexual encounter with her ex-husband notwithstanding?
He touched his lips to hers. “I’m sorry. I sometimes forget that not everyone has deep, dark secrets.”
She tried to hold his gaze, but she closed her eyes and kissed him instead so that she didn’t have to see herself reflected in his irises, telling herself that she was a liar, plain and simple, and he was the nicest guy any woman could ask for or even dream up.
Outside, a car drove past, slowing and then stopping in front of her house. She didn’t need a crystal ball to tell her that it was Cal, checking up on her, letting her know that he was there but smart enough to know he would be unwelcome. She had her own part-time stalker, someone not industrious enough to put a lot of work into the task, using his baby’s bedtime as an excuse to get the little lad to sleep while finding out if his ex-wife was being visited by her boyfriend. She was sure she’d hear about that the next time they saw each other, which would be their meeting with Heather’s guidance counselor about college applications.
“I’m hungry,” Chris said.
In the kitchen, Maeve threw together a chicken salad, toasting some leftover bread that she had brought home from the store. After a few minutes, she plated two sandwiches and refilled their wine, the two of them sitting at her small kitchen table and eating in silence.
“This is a tough one,” Chris said finally.
“I can only imagine.”
“Not a lot goes on in this town, and that’s why I like it here.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Another sandwich?”
“No,” he said, patting his stomach. “I’ve gained seven pounds since we started dating.”
“Then my work here is done,” she said. “And by the way, I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, the guys at the station did. All I hear is how I’m getting fat since dating Maeve Conlon, the best baker this side of the Hudson.”
“Is that what they call me?” she asked, blushing.
“That’s what I call you.” He pushed his plate away. “I’m amazed I can eat with this case. It’s horrible.”
Maeve knew there were other details that she wasn’t privy to, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they were. She also knew that seeing Trish Dvorak coming out of Cal’s house was not a good thing and was something she was going to keep to herself. “Anything? Any tips?”
“We get tips every day. She was here. She was there. ‘I saw her at the mall.’ ‘She was at the Bronx Zoo.’” He rubbed his big hands over his face. “Cases like this bring out the crazy.”
Maeve took his plate and scraped it into the garbage can. “So what do you do?”
“You run them down,” he said. “And you call in County. Maybe the FBI. I don’t know. We can’t handle this, Maeve. As much as I’d like to think that the Farringville PD is capable of finding a missing girl, we’re not. We bag business owners selling booze to minors and chase speeders. We try to keep kids off the streets and off drugs.”
Heather’s face flashed in front of Maeve’s eyes. “And do business owners sell booze to minors?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yeah. There’s not a kid in this town who can’t get a six-pack when they want it. A lot of the shopkeepers around here have what I call loose standards when it comes to selling booze.”
“Good to know,” Maeve said. She pulled a piece of cake from the refrigerator. “Chocolate cake? It’s your favorite.”
He thought for a minute. “What the heck. I’m already turning into a fat slob. Will probably have a heart attack. Might as well go happy.”
“Don’t say that, Chris. About the heart attack.” She sliced off a piece of her chocolate cake and put it on a plate, handing it to him. “Milk?”
“No, thanks,” he said, taking a big bite. “Actually, yes, please,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate.
“So there’s nothing on Taylor’s disappearance? Nothing at all?” Maeve asked.
He put his fork down, his appetite gone. “Nothing.” He poked at the crumbs with his finger. “County says there’s a missing person from a few towns up that they wonder about. A connection.”
“Same kind of thing?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did I hear about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? It was last year.” He picked his fork up again. “Sounds like a runaway to me and everyone else. Girls leave small towns and then…”
“Then what?” she asked when he didn’t elaborate.
“They disappear. They never come back.”
“That’s horrible,” she said.
“You’ll find her, right?” Maeve asked.
“That’s my job.”
But he didn’t sound certain, and Maeve wasn’t sure either of them believed he would get the job done. After he left, she turned on her computer and poked around, looking for the story about the case of the other missing girl.
Caroline Jerman, seventeen years old. Worked at the Rite Aid on Route 3, disappeared after work one night. No leads, no sightings.
It was as if she had vanished into thin air.
No mention of a father. Her mother had worked at Farringville Stone and Granite until it had shut down several years earlier. The former owner, Charles Connors, had offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to Caroline being reunited with her mother and sister.
Charles Connors. The name rang a bell. Maeve searched for him and found him, realizing that he had been at back-to-school night and had thanked her for her interest in his son’s mission in Mississippi. He had been the sole owner of Farringville Stone and Granite and had incurred the wrath of its workers when he closed it down and sold the land to a developer. Maeve had been aware vaguely of this happening years before but hadn’t paid too much attention, her focus on the girls and realizing her dream of becoming a business owner in her own right. The former stone yard was now home to a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes, contributing little in terms of taxes, ambience or respect for the town’s historical roots.
Cal had accused her of being “checked out” to what happened in the village, and if this story was any indication, he was right. She didn’t pay attention to local politics, and anyway, Farringville Stone and Granite wasn’t technically in Farringville, being on the far edge of town, so what did it have to do with her? Not much. The people who had moved into the homes were mostly the type who didn’t eat cupcakes or brownies or quiches, spending their time at the gym and at the waterfront, running and biking and trying to elude the inevitabilities of aging.
Of death.
Maeve smiled. If she was going to go, she was going to go happy, a little flesh on her bones, a glass of wine by her side. If not, what was the point?
She turned her attention back to Taylor. Although Maeve had deleted her fake Facebook profile six months earlier—too risky, a little too dangerous, even for her, to pretend to be a teenager—she still had the one associated with the store, so she could poke around the pages of various kids who she knew didn’t have privacy settings on their own profiles. She went to Taylor’s and saw that it hadn’t been updated for almost a year. And of the kids whose profiles she viewed, kids that were in the same class as Heather and Taylor and should have been friends with the girl, they all had one thing in common: Not one of them seemed to care that a girl their age had disappeared, their lives carrying on with regularity. There were parties to attend and Homecoming dresses to get. Not one questioned the disappearance of her classmate, wondered where she had gone. No drama, no virtual gnashing of teeth. Not a prayer offered for her return.
It was as if no one really cared about Taylor Dvorak and didn’t miss her, now that she was gone.
CHAPTER 11
Donna Fitzpatrick came in to pick up her cupcakes on Saturday morning, dressed for the babies’ christening in a pale blue silk suit, three-inch pumps on her feet. She was either Spanxed to the max or had done an excellent job of losing the baby weight that she had accrued while carrying twins; Maeve subconsciously put her hands on her own fleshy hips and wondered why, almost eighteen years after giving birth, she still felt vaguely postpartum, still a little dumpy, always a lot tired.
Maeve hadn’t sealed the cupcakes box, as she wanted Donna to see her handiwork before she covered them up. “See? On the spectrum between Thulian pink and salmon,” she said.
Donna studied the cupcakes as if she were about to begin open-heart surgery on an anesthetized patient. “Okay,” she said, the length of the two syllables leading Maeve to believe she wasn’t happy.
“It’s exactly what we discussed, Donna. Are you happy with the outcome?” Maeve asked. She heard Heather come through the door of the kitchen and then quickly retreat; the girl had heard enough about the Fitzpatrick twins and their special cupcakes to last a lifetime.
“I guess they will have to do, Maeve,” she said, digging into her expensive handbag for her wallet.
If you weren’t a new mother, you’d be on my hit list, Maeve thought. Don’t think I have one? Guess again.
Maeve smiled. “I think they’re gorgeous.” She did. She had worked hard to get them just right, and so what if Donna was less than overwhelmed? That couldn’t take away the fact that once her guests bit into one of Maeve’s cupcakes, they would be overcome with gustatory delight.
“The gold leaf is a nice touch,” Donna said, unconvinced, turning the box to get a look at the cupcakes from all angles. Finally, somewhat satisfied, she pulled out a platinum Amex and handed it to Maeve. “I’ll take three quiches, too,” she said. “I don’t think we have enough food.”
Maeve took three quiches from the refrigerated case and started wrapping them.
“Terrible thing about that girl, isn’t it?” Donna asked while looking into the cake case.
“It’s awful,” Maeve said. “I can’t imagine what Trish is going through.” That was a lie. She could imagine it, and it was the worst feeling in the world.
Donna didn’t meet her eye. “I want my babies to stay babies forever. At least I know where they are all the time, even if they are just crying and driving me crazy.”
“Little children, little problems,” Maeve said, reciting something she had heard a thousand times when the girls were small.
Donna lingered by the cookies. “I heard that you were the one who said she should go home alone. That you wouldn’t go get her.”
Maeve froze. Now I really have to kill someone, Maeve thought. The list was long, but she thought she might move Judy Wilkerson to the top of it, and if Donna didn’t show a little sympathy toward Maeve—believe what she had to say about the situation—babies or not, she was on the list, too. “That’s not true, Donna. Taylor’s almost eighteen and Judy though it was okay for her to go home on her own.”
Donna focused on a giant red velvet cake, pointing at it with one lacquered nail. “How much?”
“Thirty-eight dollars,” Maeve said. “Listen, I’d appreciate it if you could dispel the rumor that I said I was too busy to go over there.” She laughed, hoping to offset her tense tone with some levity. “Everyone who shops here knows that I close the store at the drop of a hat.”
Donna put her hands up. “I don’t want to get involved. I don’t know what happened.”
“But you were here, Donna,” Maeve said. “You heard the whole conversation. Remember? My sister was here that day?”
“Can I get my cupcakes?” Donna said.
Maeve closed the box and sealed it with a Comfort Zone sticker. She pushed the box across the counter along with the three quiches and rang up the order. “Do you need help getting these to the car?” Maeve asked.
“I’ve only got two hands!” Donna said, giving a mirthless chuckle and moving herself from low on Maeve’s hit list to the number one spot. Sure, the kids would be motherless, but did Donna really bring any joy to anyone in this world? Maeve mulled that over as she walked into the back of the store to ask Heather to cover for her while she helped Mrs. Fitzpatrick to her car. She had pressed Heather into service today, giving Jo a “much-needed” day off, according to her returning employee, hoping that she and her daughter could have a little fun at work, catch up on everything in each other’s lives. Instead, she got stony silence and one-word answers.
The more things change, she thought.
Donna’s tiny sports car, short on cargo room, was packed to the gills, and Maeve had a hard time finding
a place for the extra boxes in the order. Donna looked at her. “You’ll have to deliver the rest of it.” She saw Maeve eyeing the low-slung car. “My husband has the minivan,” she said. “You have my address, right?”
Maeve did, but it was in the store, along with all of the other orders she needed to complete, and the to-do list that seemed to get longer every time she stepped out of the kitchen. “Remind me?”
“Fourteen Mockingbird Lane. Will you remember that?” Donna asked, putting on a pair of aviator-framed sunglasses.
“Mockingbird Lane? Like the street where the Munsters lived?” Maeve asked, thinking back to one of her favorite television shows from childhood.
“I don’t know the Munsters, but if they lived on Mockingbird Lane, then yes, that’s the street,” Donna said.
Maeve didn’t have the energy to get into it with Donna, to let her know that if the Munsters lived on her street, she’d know it. There would be no missing a guy with bolts in his neck and a wife who was a vampire. “Okay. See you in a few,” Maeve said, then muttered, “You’re welcome,” under her breath as she watched Donna drive away in her impractical car.
She went through the store, her arms laden with boxes, and let Heather know that she’d be back as soon as she could.
She pulled into Donna’s circular drive about fifteen minutes after having begun her trek. This was why she didn’t know about the stone yard, the houses here, the people who lived in the gigantic homes: It was way out of the way, and Maeve was hard-pressed to remember a time she had last been here. Neither of the girls had had play dates out here, and Maeve certainly didn’t have any friends for whom she would have made this schlep on a regular basis. She opened her trunk as a white-coated chef hurried out to relieve her of her haul and send her on her way. The “help” weren’t seen here; that was clear.
Maeve pulled out onto the street and parked the car, taking a minute to meander through the neighborhood, wondering if she should have been more upset about the yard closing, the sudden development of homes cropping up out of a gorgeous landscape that sat high on a hill and overlooked a body of water that was also unknown to her. Metal canoes dotted its shore, leading her to believe that it fed into the reservoir, a place where only county-sanctioned watercraft could be launched. The view from above was spectacular; Charles Connors had been sitting on a prime piece of real estate and had sold the land for a small fortune, she guessed, incurring the wrath of the local environmentalists and longtime locals who would have preferred the jobs and the industry to the development of large, impressive homes.