Sacrificial Ground fc-1

by Thomas H. Cook

  “No.”

  “Did she say anything about what she intended to do about the baby?”

  “No.”

  “Did you think she was going to have it?”

  “I assumed that she was, yes,” Clark said. “And I assumed that I would be in attendance at the birth.” Once again he looked at Frank closely. “You know, you really should get something done about your face.”

  Frank gave him his card. “I want you to send me everything in your file on Angelica. Tests, consultation notes, everything.”

  Dr. Clark nodded quickly. “Yes, of course.”

  “I want them on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

  “I will have them there,” Clark assured him. He shifted about nervously. “May I go now? I have an appointment in half an hour.”

  Caleb was still leaning against the tree when Frank returned. The heat of midday had already wet the armpits of his light green jacket, and he looked as if he were about to dissolve into the sweltering air.

  “It’s rougher on the fatties,” he said. “Skinny people, they don’t ever look hot.” He glanced at the figure of Dr. Clark as he scurried down a small hill. “Who was that peckerwood?”

  “A doctor,” Frank said morosely. “Like I said. She had figured out that she might be pregnant. She went to him to make sure.”

  Caleb straightened himself. “Well, let’s get back downtown,” he said.

  The two of them headed down the hill toward the car. The bright light swept around the gray tombstones, bleaching them to a pure hard white.

  “He saw her for the first time on May eleventh,” Frank said. “Then she came back four days later for the results.”

  Caleb stopped. “May fifteenth? What time?”

  Frank looked at his notes. “Three-thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Well, that’s pinpointing it,” Caleb said casually.

  “If you were a young girl who’d just found out she was pregnant, who would you call, Caleb?”

  “Daddy, I guess.”

  Frank nodded. “Have you done a check on her phone yet?”

  “No,” Caleb said. “But it would only take a second.”

  They hurried back to their car, then headed downtown. Once at his desk, Frank ran the check, detailing Angelica’s calls on the afternoon and evening of May 15.

  “She made three calls that day,” he told Caleb, who waited anxiously beside his desk. “They were all to the same number.”

  Caleb walked away quickly, then returned with the reverse directory.

  Frank read him the number, and Caleb looked it up.

  “That number belongs to a Stanford K. Doyle,” Caleb said. “He lives in Ansley Park.”

  Frank pulled the program of Angelica’s play from his pocket and opened it. “Stanford Doyle was one of the cast,” he said.

  “Daddy,” Caleb whispered vehemently.

  A few minutes later, they were in the car, heading down a road that seemed to lead like a single dark thread to the heart of Ansley Park.

  16

  The Doyle house was located on a small lot in a middle-class section of Atlanta. Ansley Park was a far cry from the shaded boulevards and spacious estates of West Paces Ferry Road. Its modest brick homes seemed to rest exactly between the mansions of the north side of the city and the poverty-ridden hovels to the south.

  “Look at that,” Caleb said, as he looked at the single-story brick house with its two-car garage. “I bet they got a Buick station wagon with an old travel map of Yosemite National Park in the glove compartment.”

  Frank got out of the car and waited for Caleb to join him. He could feel a strange tension growing in him, as if he were nearing the dark center of the case, the shadows where the animal lurked.

  “Be careful,” he said to Caleb.

  Caleb looked at him oddly. “Careful? What we got here, Frank—providing we’ve got anything at all—is an average kid who took something too far.” He glanced at the house. “I mean, look at the yard. Somebody mowed it yesterday.” He shook his head. “No, middle-class killers will put out their hands and let you snap the cuffs on. It’s like something’s already missing in them. They don’t know how to fight; they don’t know how to run.” He looked at Frank pointedly. “When you get like that, you’re better off dead.” He started up the walkway, sauntering casually toward the front door, as if nothing odd ever happened, nothing unpredictable, as if no office worker had ever blown away the typing pool.

  Caleb was already rapping loudly at the door when Frank stepped up beside him. It opened immediately, and a tall, thin, redheaded boy stared at them from behind the screen. He had a light, unblemished complexion, and he was wearing a T-shirt embossed with large white letters: NORTHFIELD ACADEMY.

  Caleb glanced at the letters, then at Frank. “Daddy,” he whispered, as the two of them stepped nearer to the door.

  Frank pulled out his badge. “Are you Stanford Doyle?”

  “Junior,” the boy said weakly, “Stanford Doyle, Junior.”

  “Is your daddy home?” Caleb asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “You alone?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. “My father’s on vacation for the next two weeks.”

  “Whereabouts?” Caleb asked.

  “Florida. Fort Lauderdale.”

  “So you’re living by yourself?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  For a moment, Frank did not know how to begin. Some things were too tender to be approached, and as far as he could tell, the boy seemed to have no idea what had brought him to his door.

  “I see you go to Northfield,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You like it there, Stanford?”

  “Stan,” the boy said. “People call me Stan.”

  “You like it at Northfield?”

  “It’s all right.”

  Caleb took out his handkerchief and pointedly swabbed his neck. “It’s hot out here. Your place air-conditioned?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Suppose we could cool off a little while we talk?”

  “Oh, sure,” the boy said, as if suddenly attentive to good manners. “Come on in.” He swung open the door and Frank and Caleb walked inside.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” Caleb said.

  “In here, then,” the boy said. He ushered them into a small living room. The carpet was bright green, the walls pastel green with small white flowers. It looked like the sort of place where the Christmas tree stood for a long time, gathering small red packages beneath it.

  Caleb sat down in one of the large, stuffed chairs which faced the sofa. “Nice place,” he said. “Lived here long?”

  “All my life.”

  “Lucky you,” Caleb added with a big smile. “Lot of people from Northfield live out this way?”

  The boy smiled. “Not many. They mostly live farther north.”

  Frank glanced at a family portrait. It was of a man and his son.

  “That’s my dad,” the boy said.

  “Where’s Mom?” Caleb asked.

  “She’s dead,” the boy answered. “In childbirth.”

  “So it’s just you and your dad who live here?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. He looked at Frank. “Don’t you want to sit down?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The boy took a seat on the sofa, his eyes darting nervously from Frank to Caleb. “I’ve never had the police come around here,” he said.

  As he watched the boy squirming on the sofa, Frank suddenly felt a deep sympathy for everyone who had not yet gone through the later stages of life. They were a mystery, a wilderness that could hardly have been more visible in Stanford Doyle’s eyes. He looked as if he’d just emerged from a protective shell.

  “You like this area?” Caleb asked amiably.

  “I’ve never lived anywhere else,” the boy said. His voice was weak, almost plaintive, and as he spoke he lowered his eyes sl
ightly. It gave him a look of lingering innocence.

  “Northfield, that’s a pretty expensive place,” Caleb said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Been going there long?”

  “For the last two years.”

  “What are you now? Junior? Senior?”

  “I graduated,” Stan said.

  “When was that?” Caleb asked.

  “Last month,” the boy said. “I’m supposed to be going to college in September.”

  “Which one?”

  “Emory.”

  Caleb smiled broadly. “Well, that’s wonderful? Right, Frank?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. He paused a moment, then pushed ahead, since there was no other way. “I guess you have some idea about why we’re here.”

  The boy said nothing.

  “Angelica Devereaux,” Frank added.

  The boy nodded slowly.

  “She was in your graduating class.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re trying to find out a little about her,” Frank said. “How well did you know her, Stan?

  “A little.”

  “No more than that?”

  “We talked sometimes.”

  Caleb leaned forward slightly. “Well, that makes you sort of special.”

  Stan looked at him. “Why?”

  “The way we hear it, she didn’t talk to anybody over at Northfield.”

  “That’s right,” Stan said. “She didn’t.”

  “But she did talk to you?” Caleb asked pointedly.

  “Not much.”

  “Yeah, right. A little, like you said.”

  “She didn’t really have any friends at the school,” Stan said. “I don’t know why.”

  “But that’s pretty strange, don’t you think?” Caleb said. “I mean, a pretty girl like that?”

  The boy shrugged. “That’s the way she was.”

  “What way?” Frank asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How would you describe her?”

  “Well, she was very pretty.”

  “Beyond her looks,” Frank said. “Her personality.”

  “I don’t know about that,” the boy said. “I really don’t. I mean, we weren’t close.” He glanced out the front window to the close-cropped lawn. It was turning brown along its edges, and the heat which blazed down upon it seemed to be sucking at its essential life.

  “The thing is,” Caleb said. “Here we have a real pretty girl who’s been in a school for quite some time, and yet nobody knows anything about her. “ He looked at the boy piercingly. “Does that make any sense to you, Stan?”

  “That’s just the way she was,” the boy said again.

  “Shy, you mean? Aloof?”

  “I guess, “ Stan said. “She acted like she didn’t really want anybody to know her.”

  “Did you know she had a phone in her room?” Frank asked.

  “No.”

  “She only made three calls from that phone during the last three months.”

  Stan looked at Frank vacantly.

  “They were all made on one day, May fifteenth.”

  Still no reaction. The boy stared at Frank.

  “And they were all made to the number at this house.”

  Stan’s lips parted. “To me? She tried to call me?”

  “You didn’t get these calls?”

  “No.”

  Caleb looked questioningly at Frank, then turned to Stan. “You didn’t know she was trying to get hold of you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” the boy said frantically. “I swear I didn’t.”

  “Do you have any idea why she might have been trying to reach you?” Frank asked.

  Stan shook his head vigorously. “I hadn’t talked to her since the play.”

  “You were in the play?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Frank took out his notebook. “She called you three times on May fifteenth,” he said. “You have no idea why?”

  “I don’t,” the boy said emphatically. He looked helplessly at Caleb, then back at Frank. “I swear to you, I don’t know about these calls. Maybe she just got our answering machine, and didn’t leave a message.”

  That was possible, Frank thought. The call would register even if she didn’t say anything.

  “Did you know she was pregnant?” he asked.

  The boy drew in a quick breath. “What?”

  “Angelica was pregnant,” Frank told him. “Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Takes two, of course,” said Caleb pointedly.

  Stan’s eyes closed slowly. “I didn’t know she was pregnant,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know that.”

  “She found out on May fifteenth,” Frank said, “the same day she called you.”

  “Now when you think about it,” Caleb said, “when you get news like that, there’s a couple people you might want to call.” He stuck a single finger into the air. “Your best friend, maybe.” He looked at Stan. “But you say you didn’t know Angelica very well.” A second finger shot into the air. “Or maybe the father. You might want to call him.”

  Stan took a deep breath. “I may be the father,” he said.

  “May be?”

  “I slept with her once. I don’t know if anyone else did.”

  “You only slept with her once?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So it wasn’t exactly a romance,” Caleb said.

  “No, sir, not at all,” Stan said. “When I told you a minute ago that I didn’t know Angelica very well, that was the truth. I really didn’t. I had practically never said a word to her before that night.” He looked at Frank. “The night we did it, I mean.” He turned toward Caleb. “We’d just pass in the hallway at school. She might say ‘hi,’ she might not. It was like that. Until that one time.”

  “When was that ‘one time’?” Caleb asked bluntly.

  “It was the last night of rehearsals,” Stan said.

  “When was that?”

  “April first.”

  Frank wrote it down.

  “It was a Friday night,” Stan added. “The next Saturday was opening night.”

  “So you had the rehearsal,” Frank said. “Then what?”

  “We went for a ride.”

  “In your car?”

  “No, Angelica’s.”

  “The red BMW.”

  “Yeah, that one,” Stan said. “What a car. She’d only had it about a month.”

  Frank looked up from his notebook. “Go on.”

  “Well, the rehearsal was like always,” Stan went on. “Maybe a little more intense, since we were opening the next night.” He looked toward Caleb. “It was over around eleven, which was later than usual. Everybody was tired.” He leaned back farther into the back of the sofa and let out a long, slow breath. “Anyway, I was headed toward my car … my father’s car, actually, and that’s when Angelica pulled up.”

  Frank could see her behind the wheel, her blonde hair streaming over her shoulders. “What did she say?” he asked.

  “Well, she’d been a little nervous all night. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the opening night jitters.”

  “What did she say, Stan?” Caleb asked insistently.

  “She had this look in her eye. Like she was mad at me or something. I thought she was going to say something bad, but she didn’t. I mean, she’d been really sharp to people all night. Everybody was waiting for Mr. Jameson to chew her out, but he didn’t. He just stayed clear of her, like he was afraid of her or something.”

  Frank could see her face, the hard blue eyes, the tight strained mouth, the cool, lean words that came from it when she spoke.

  “‘Get in,’ she said,” Stan told him. “It was in this hard voice. She just said ‘Get in.’”

  Frank wrote it down quickly.

  “Is that all she said?” Caleb asked.

  “That’s all she said.”

  “So you got in, right?”

  “Yes, sir,�
� Stan said. “I got in and I really didn’t know what was going on with her. So I just said, ‘What’s up, Angelica?’ or something like that. And she just laughed this little laugh and she said, ‘You’ll find out, if you keep your mouth shut.’ Then she pulled out of the lot. And I mean she really pulled out, squealing her tires, you know?”

  Frank could hear the echoes of the tires as they resounded through the summer night, a high, thready wail.

  “Where’d you go?” he asked.

  “We headed downtown,” Stan said. “I remember it very well. It was a clear night, and the dogwoods were blooming, and I said something about how beautiful they were, and she said, ‘Yeah, beautiful.’”

  “So you went downtown,” Caleb said. “Whereabouts?”

  “We ended up on the Southside,” Stan said, “Grant Park, around in there.”

  “Did you just end up there, or did she look as if she was headed there in particular?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, she seemed to know where she was going from the first.”

  “And she went directly to the Southside?”

  “Yes, sir, directly,” Stan said. “She went right to Grant Park. Then we circled the park a couple of times, maybe more. She was always looking out the window. I got the feeling she was looking for somebody.”

  “Did she mention drugs?” Caleb asked.

  “No.”

  “Because a lot of dealers hang around the park.”

  “She didn’t say anything about drugs.”

  “But she did circle the park?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, sir. She circled it at least twice, maybe more.”

  “Then what?”

  “She drove into the park itself,” Stan said. “She went down to where they’re doing the restoration on that historical diorama thing, you know, the battle of Atlanta?”

  “The Cyclorama?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Frank wrote it down.

  “And that’s where she parked,” Stan added.

  Frank looked up from his notebook. “She parked at the Cyclorama?”

  “That’s right. She pulled over to this storm fence they have there, and she parked.”

  “How long did you stay there?”

  Stan thought about it. “Maybe ten minutes. Maybe less, maybe more. I’m not really sure. To tell you the truth, I didn’t exactly know what I was doing at that point. I mean, she hadn’t said a word to me all the way downtown. I figured since we’d parked, maybe she’d start to talk. But she didn’t. She just sat where she was, smoked a cigarette and stared into the rearview mirror.”