Idyll Hands

by Stephanie Gayle

  “No, he still has it,” Billy said.

  “Really?” Lewis was as surprised as I was.

  “Yeah, and he said he’d transfer it for us onto VHS.”

  “When can we get it?” Lewis asked, standing. He reached for his jacket.

  “I was going to ask if I could fetch it now,” Billy asked. “Do you think that’s okay? Or do you guys want to go?”

  “We’ll go,” Lewis answered. He glanced at me. “Hurry up.” Like I wasn’t on my feet, coat in hand, waiting on him.

  The inside of Stan’s Cameras reminded me of a jewelry store. Only instead of diamond rings behind the glass, there were lenses and cameras and flashes and battery packs. I’d never been much of one for photography. Did I still own a camera? Nope. Pretty sure ex-wife #3 took all the electronics, including the coffeepot. And she didn’t drink coffee.

  Lewis spoke to Stan, the owner, a small man with a comb-over that brought tears to your eyes. Why bother grabbing those six strands of hair and pulling them over his freckled scalp? Who did he hope to fool? He wore an outfit that reminded me of Mr. Rogers from TV, a cardigan over a button-up shirt and tie, and sneakers. He’d told us he was finishing the transfer of the 8 mm film now. He’d looked at the pictures we brought and confirmed that yes, that man was Donald. Lewis asked more questions about Donald. Where did he work? Landscaping company. But we knew that. Where he lived? Around the corner. Close enough; it was two blocks over. If he had a girlfriend? Yes, he talked about a Stacy once. He had to leave to pick her up for dinner. Stacy have a last name? Sorry, no. It was so long ago. I only remember Stacy because that’s my sister’s name.

  “Let me just pop to the back and have a look,” Stan said.

  While he was in back, the door opened, and the bell over it jangled. A harried woman entered, hair a tangle, tentative. She saw us, and shied away. “Stan here?”

  “He’s in the back,” Lewis said.

  She stepped around us and looked at the lenses farthest from us. Stan came through, a VHS tape in hand, and cried, “Ah, Sherry. I have your lens. Came in yesterday. Just one sec.”

  He got the package and produced the lens. Much shop talk ensued about apertures and f-stops and shutters. My eyes stayed on the tape. Maybe we could just grab it and go? Lewis cleared his throat, quietly. Sherry and Stan stopped talking, swung their eyes his way.

  “I should be going,” Sherry said.

  “Nice seeing you,” Stan said.

  Damn. I couldn’t do that. Make people hop to it with a cleared throat or cocked brow. Lewis could. The chief could. Me? I needed a club or a gun to make people do that, and I didn’t enjoy using either.

  “You have a video player.” Stan made it a statement as he handed me the tape.

  “Actually,” I said, “It’s busted.”

  “It is?” Lewis wrinkled his nose. “When?”

  “Since a kid on a station tour stuck a pencil inside it.”

  “We arrest him?”

  “Nope. Turns out we can’t incarcerate eleven-year-olds.”

  “You have a video player we might use?” Lewis asked.

  “Of course. In back.”

  “In back is perfect.” Lewis started walking before the owner could disagree.

  In back was full of inventory in various states of packed and unpacked, plus machines for transferring film. A tiny space to the right was marked “Darkroom.”

  There was only one chair. “I’ll stand,” Lewis said. Stan slipped the tape into the video player. The bell out front jangled. “I need—” Stan said.

  “Sure thing,” I said, eyes on the screen. “Go take care of it.”

  Stan hurried away, ready to sell cameras.

  The screen showed snow at first, just black-and-white streaks. Then it was outside, a bright day. And then a girl was in frame. If we hadn’t known the footage was old, her outfit would’ve been a dead giveaway. Peasant blouse and bell bottoms and clogs. She smiled and waved at the camera. “Closer,” a voice said, from the video, a male’s voice, the person shooting the film.

  “Daniel,” Lewis said.

  Elizabeth smiled and walked closer. We’d seen photos, of course, and her rotted corpse and skeleton arm, but nothing had shown how she was in life. Here she smiled, revealing that gap between her teeth. Her laugh was low-pitched. She twirled and cried, “Wonder Woman!” Her blouse billowed as she spun.

  The screen went to snow, and then Elizabeth was all dressed up in a green dress, her hair pinned up, lips bright pink, dangling earrings nearly kissing her collarbone. “Yeah, just there. Stop. Smile!”

  Elizabeth did as commanded, but then she fidgeted. “Are you done?” Her voice both plaintive and annoyed. “We’ll be late.”

  The camera suddenly filled with a cowboy boot and gravel. He must’ve lowered it. Furious whispers. The words “why” and “nag” the only ones I was sure of before there was footage of Daniel and Elizabeth, she still in the green dress. People milled around them, drinking and laughing. He wore a bolo tie and sports jacket. There was the cleft chin, the dark curly hair. “Give it back,” he said, hand outstretched. “That’s enough.”

  “Let him take our picture,” Elizabeth implored, kissing Daniel’s cheek.

  “It’s a film, not a picture,” he corrected.

  “Pedant,” I muttered.

  Another few seconds and then we were outside again, and Elizabeth was taking pictures, aiming her camera at the sky, then at trees. “Let’s go,” he said, voice terse.

  “Just a couple more minutes.” Elizabeth didn’t turn around. It was winter. She wore a long gray coat and pink hat. They’d broken up in late February.

  “Camera got shaky,” Lewis complained. True. The next footage we watched was less stable. Elizabeth was so far away I wasn’t sure the speck was her. But then I saw she stood outside the house the Gardners had lived in before the parents split and moved. We’d seen pictures. Elizabeth was fuzzy.

  Then it was closer but a different day. She walked along, never looking back.

  “He’s taping her without her knowledge,” Lew whispered.

  “You think?”

  She turned, a quarter-turn, and the footage went to pavement, as if the camera had been lowered abruptly.

  She was in a car with a girlfriend, next, laughing and singing, “I Will Survive.” The camera shook. And then went black. We waited for more. Nothing, not even snow.

  “Is it over?” I asked.

  Lewis looked at the video player for information.

  Snow appeared again.

  “Looks like it,” he said. He leaned forward to press eject.

  The screen filled with Elizabeth, wearing jeans and a jacket, carrying her camera. “That’s Scoville Sanctuary!” I shouted. We’d visited the site. We knew what it looked like. “That’s her car!” Her car, parked near the entrance, found hours later, when they began searching for her. The camera followed her as she walked up an incline. Her camera was down, at her side. She didn’t know he was behind her. She was utterly relaxed, walking, humming. You could hear it. Very softly, she was humming.

  And then the camera got close enough to show her jacket had a small tear in the back, and those were Sasson jeans. A loud snap made her turn. Her face, scared, eyes wide. “Don—”

  And then it was a blur as it sped toward her, the screen all hair, and a crash, and “Ah!”

  “He hit her with the camera,” Lewis said.

  She was on the ground, touching her head, scrambling backward. He’d hit her with the camera. Why hadn’t they found her blood there? It was spring, it was muddy but …

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don, don’t.” She had got to a half-crouch, her camera abandoned on the forest floor. Her hand was at her skull.

  “You stupid bitch.” His voice was hard and cold and disgusted. “You’ll pay.”

  And then all we saw was mud and rocks and a bit of cowboy boot as he grunted and she screamed and then it was silent, so fast it felt like another blow. Nothing. Nothing.
And then the camera was being lifted, and there was a little bit of her shoes, her ankles crossed and lying still, and then, “That’ll teach you.” Blackness.

  We watched until the tape stopped, in case there was more. But there wasn’t.

  “He killed her,” I said.

  Lewis was vibrating. I could feel it from where I sat. His body was trembling. “We need to find that fucker,” he said.

  CHIEF THOMAS LYNCH

  SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1999

  1400 HOURS

  Donna Daniels missed her calling. She shouldn’t have been a bartender. She should’ve been a prison guard. I told her that after she woke me for the sixth time to check that I was lucid and that my concussion wouldn’t kill me. “Not that I’m sure it would be such a loss,” she said, her cool fingers pressing my wound. I’d yelled. She’d told me to quit being such a baby.

  She slept on the floral loveseat, left crumbs from her meals all over the place, and sang off-key, loudly, a lot. After a day of this, I kicked her out of my home. “You think I don’t have better things to do than babysit you?” she asked, hoisting her giant purse onto her shoulder.

  “I think you have other things to do.”

  Before she left, she made me promise that I would stay home today. “No work,” she said. I’d made the same promise to the hospital nurse, the doctor who’d checked my head, Lewis, Damien, and Nate. No going to work for two days. But this, this, I told myself, was a hobby. It wasn’t an active investigation. And besides, being in my house wasn’t restful. I kept reliving yesterday’s scenes, kissing Damien and then the blowout with Matt. And my head felt great, well, good. Almost as good as usual. Going on a drive would be beneficial. Fresh air, etcetera, etcetera. Though there wasn’t a lot of fresh air on the highway.

  Jack McGee’s house was across the street from the Finnegans’ home. His place was painted blue and had a wide driveway, unlike every other house that necessitated its owners park their cars two wheels up on the curb.

  I rang the bell. Waited. Rang again. Nothing. Hell. I’d driven two hours for nothing. My head started up again. I walked toward my car. So much for making progress. Lewis had given me a summary of Jack McGee’s criminal exploits: reselling stolen goods, assault, breaking and entering, arson (that charge was dropped), and running numbers. But this same petty scum was seen dropping Susan Finnegan at church more than once. That was a disparity that I needed to investigate.

  I reached into my car and grabbed my pills and a bottle of water. Recalled I wasn’t supposed to drive on the meds. Damn. I’d have to wait until I got home to take my pills. I set them down and leaned against the car. Closed my eyes and felt the hot sun baking me. Behind my lids, everything was red.

  A cool hand on my forearm startled me. “Chief Lynch? Thomas?” Mrs. Finnegan stood beside me, worry all over her face. “Are you okay?”

  I straightened up and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Trying to pay a visit to your neighbor.”

  She looked at the houses. “Jack?” Her voice leapt. “You want to talk to him?”

  “I do.”

  “He won’t talk to you. You’re a stranger and a cop.” I glanced down at my polo and khakis. She laughed. “You look like a cop, and there’s your car on the street, announcing you.”

  Fair point. “But if I go with you …” she trailed off.

  “Why would he let you in?”

  “He owes me. Are you sure you’re all right? Looks like you bumped your head.”

  “Looks worse than it is,” I said.

  “Liar,” she said, cheerfully. “Let’s go get come cookies.”

  “I don’t need cookies.”

  “Not for you,” she said. “For him.”

  She went home and returned with a round cookie tin featuring the Bunker Hill monument. I could see the great stone structure from where I stood. It was imposing, a big granite obelisk that dominated the view and made me feel as if it was watching the neighborhood. Silly. My head must be worse than I’d thought.

  She rang his doorbell and yelled, “Open up, Jack! I brought cookies.” Under her breath she said, “He just got back from the hospital. Heart operation.”

  The door swung open to reveal an old man in a bathrobe. He had a three-day beard, all gray. His face matched. Had the surgery been successful? Didn’t look like it. He was Finny’s age, but he looked twenty years older.

  “Patricia, you didn’t say you’d brought a friend.” He had the voice of a longtime smoker. “And a cop to boot! The doctors said I shouldn’t have any excitement, you know.” He took the cookie tin from her and pried open the lid. He smiled at the contents. “Shortbread. My favorite. From Mrs. Keeley’s recipe?”

  “As if the old bat would share that!” She laughed alongside him. He closed the front door and seated himself in a battered recliner. Reminded me of my own, though mine didn’t smell like a pack of cigarettes or have burn marks all over it. He’d fallen asleep more than once with a ciggie in hand. Miracle he hadn’t burned this place down.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He wheezed.

  Mrs. Finnegan said, “I’ll leave you to chat.” She opened the door and was on the steps before the surprise registered. I’d assumed she’d stay. But she’d gotten me inside, and that’s all she intended.

  “That’s a favor repaid,” he said under his breath.

  “I’m looking into her daughter Susan’s disappearance,” I took a seat. The springs in the sofa were worn. I felt one trying to poke its way into the back of my thigh.

  “Susan.” He rubbed his mouth. “She thinks you’re gonna find her after twenty-some-odd years? Poor thing.”

  “You claimed you didn’t see her the day she disappeared.”

  “I lied.” He leaned back.

  “Why?”

  “I’d been up to no good that day, and I didn’t think sharing that info would win me any points with the boys in blue. Besides, Susan was on her way down the road the day she went. I heard it from the neighbors. My story just backed up everyone else’s.”

  “You could’ve told the truth later, no?”

  He stared at me. “Right. Cuz me and the local cops were so close. They kept busting up every little operation until they ran us out of business. And for what? So the neighborhood could get overrun by blacks and spics? So the murder rate could increase?”

  “What else didn’t you tell them, back then?”

  He snickered under his breath and smiled. Oh, this guy. I knew this guy. I’d met a hundred like him back in New York. They thought so highly of themselves, maintaining a corner or two and thinking they controlled the city. They were aggressive bullies who liked nice things and who hated having their superiority questioned. They were easy in interviews because they could never keep their damn mouths shut.

  “You knew more about her, didn’t you? Things you never told them.”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t hard to outsmart those stupid pigs. They couldn’t find their asses with their elbows. I mean, did they ever find where she went the first time?”

  “When she ran away.”

  “Yup.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “She was picked up in New Hampshire.”

  “Yeah, but where was she headed?” His voice took on that tone. The “I know something you don’t” tone. I loved it. He’d spill soon, for sure.

  “North, obviously.”

  He made a buzzing sound, like I’d guessed wrong on a quiz show. “Wrong. She told me she was heading where it never snowed. Besides, she didn’t know anyone up there. She tried to go south, but it didn’t work. Poor kid. Maybe if she’d made it the first time she’d have been okay.”

  “Why do you think she’s not okay?”

  He looked up at the ceiling, like he couldn’t bear to stare at my dumb mug. “No way she leaves her mother to hang like this for decades, worrying. Nah. Something happened to her.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it.” Shit. Now he was pouting.


  “I didn’t say you did, but since you know more about where she went, or tried to go, the first time, I’m thinking maybe you have insight into her disappearance.”

  He coughed. His hand went to his chest. “Goddamn that hurts.” There were no medicine bottles in the room. No hospital paperwork. I glanced at his wrist. No plastic bracelet.

  “You talk to her best friend?” he asked. “Lucy?”

  “Yeah. She confirmed that Susan was pregnant.”

  He massaged his chest, rubbing a slow circle, around and around. No sign of an IV mark on his hand. How long had he been home?

  “About time you figured that out,” he said.

  “You knew.”

  He looked like the cat that ate the canary. All that was missing was a bright feather poking from his mouth.

  “You knew all this time.”

  “The real questions is, How didn’t they know? She was wearing loose clothes, but you could see she was changing.” Was that true? I’d let it slide.

  “Bet you know who the father is, too.”

  He smiled. His teeth were yellowed. “They all thought she was pure as driven snow.”

  “You dropped her at church, so she could help out there.”

  “Did I?”

  “Stop playing coy. Didn’t take you for the church-type.”

  “Everyone was the church-type back then. Stone-cold killers sat next to their grandmas back in the day. It was a better time then, more,” he spun his hand, searching for the word, “congenial.”

  “Right. Which one of those congenial gents got Susan pregnant and then abandoned her?”

  “You make it sound sinister. You ever knock up the wrong girl?” He looked me over. Wasn’t gonna find a “yes” anytime soon. “Maybe the congenial gent couldn’t take care of her, right? Some of us were already working, supporting families.”

  I made a show of looking around the room for evidence of his family.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “This gent. He was a friend of yours?”

  His eyes flicked to the TV in the room, an older model. Everything in the place was slightly out of date and worn past its prime. He didn’t answer. My head was starting up again, thumping. The cigarette smell, and this guy, and his attitude. But he might have answers. He knew more. I needed to stick it out.