by Rae Meadows
The liquor store has fifths of vodka in the back freezer. She buys one, and, holding the cold paper bag next to her belly, searches for her car, which she hasn’t used in weeks. After some futile wanderings, she finds it parked in front of a razor wire–fenced empty lot, a back window broken out, a transient’s beer cans and trash in the front seat, a stack of orange, weather-beaten parking tickets under the windshield wiper. She brushes them off onto the street like dead leaves and slides into the baking driver’s seat. The heat makes her shiver.
She’s supposed to be at work but she has blocked it out. The vodka is cheap but its harshness is blunted by a forgiving chill. Between swallows she holds the wet, cold bottle against the hives on her chest. The air conditioner labors, overmatched. In the rearview mirror the circles under her eyes are ashy moons, her cheekbones are severe ledges, and the hives on her neck have fused into one big inflamed bump over her collarbone. She flips the mirror to the ceiling.
Grace drives fast out of Brooklyn and Queens, flying east on the Long Island Expressway back to Emeryville. By the time she reaches fraternity row she is riled up, primed for confrontation. A painter has worked halfway across the top floor of the SAE house and there is only a solitary mountain bike outside. She bangs on the front door with the side of her fist. No one answers. She tries kicking.
A young, bespectacled guy in basketball shorts answers the door.
“Can I help you?”
His tousled hair suggests he has just woken up and this makes Grace even angrier. She thrusts her face at his.
“Did you know Charles Raggatt?” she demands.
“That murderer kid?”
“The one you and your frat buddies toyed with and sponged off of,” she spits, pointing her finger at his chest.
“Whoa, lady. I’m just living here for summer school. I didn’t know the guy. I don’t even go here.”
“Oh,” she says, sinking into herself, disoriented. “Sorry.” She takes a step back; he must think she is deranged. “I’m just upset.”
“Yeah, okay,” he says, closing the door some.
He flicks his eyes past her, and she knows he’s about to call campus police.
She scurries back to the car, takes a nip from the bottle, and drives straight to town. She goes to the donut shop, but a girl with pink pigtails is behind the counter. The teamster is not at the diner, where Grace sits for two minutes with a Coke. She is a hamster on a wheel, after something, anything, around and around.
She drives out toward the beach, to the nondescript stucco complex called The Landings where Charles felt his mind slip through his hands, and where he buried Sarah Shafer’s body behind the barbecue pit. There are two buildings of eight units each; Charles lived on the very end. Easy anonymity with nice amenities. It could be anywhere. Although the place lacks character, it has a walkway to the beach, which would have appealed to his need to show off in the only way he knew how. In interviews with police, none of the residents claimed to have known him. His upstairs neighbor said only that he had been exceedingly polite and had kept to himself.
Grace parks in one of the reserved spaces. Closed blinds block the windows of the apartment where Charles lived, so she slips behind the building. And there it is, the patio with picnic tables and a brick grill. At the edge, a large discolored patch of sandy earth. No one ever noticed anything. He must have been so quiet and neat when he buried her body. What did he think when he was done? Could he push the feel of her cold skin from his mind? Could he ever really rid himself of the stench of her?
Knowing Charles, she thinks, he called the police on himself. He led them straight to him because he could think of no other way, no one else to become.
It is cooler out here with the ocean breeze. Grace returns to the car for her depleted bottle and then follows the path toward the water, sliding off her shoes. There are a few people scattered about, but because it’s a weekday, the beach is relatively empty. The sand burns coarse and hot on her soles, and she walks quickly to the water’s edge where small waves lap the shore. She wades in, soaking her gypsy skirt up to her knees.
She hasn’t been in the ocean since she was sixteen, the last vacation she took with her parents. They went every summer for two weeks with other families from the circuit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They all rented big houses and evenings were spent drinking on alternate verandahs. The kids she’d grown up with went jet skiing and surfing and drank beer around bonfires at night. Grace was sullen and sat in the sun by herself or stayed inside, getting high and reading cheap mysteries. She wanted to be gone; she couldn’t wait for college.
On the last day, when everyone else went on an outing to the giant sand dunes, she sat on the beach in her bikini, feeling the sun burn her skin and wishing it would scorch her into ash. But something drew her to the ocean that afternoon and she walked straight in, as if mesmerized, dunked repeatedly by large breakers until she could get past them, oblivious to the warning flag flying from the lifeguard perch just down the beach, not noticing that no one else was in the water. She could feel the pull underneath but it wasn’t until she was far enough out and could no longer stand that the rip current snatched hold of her and pulled her along. She watched the mainland with wonder as she was carried down the shore and out further into the ocean. It was such a delicious letting go. She was giddy, almost euphoric. I will go this way, she said to herself, and it will be fine. She thought about how she would see Callie again and how she might explain everything. She imagined her parents at her funeral, sitting together this time. But then she was tugged downward, pulled under the water, and panic set in, her body reacting with primal urgency to survive. She kicked and flailed, struggling to extricate herself, gasping. She fought. And then all at once, she was spit out in some convergence of currents. When she grappled her way back to the shore she was a mile and a half down the beach.
The salt water burns her lacerated hives. She welcomes it. She walks further out, all the way into the water, her too-large tank top floating around her body and her skirt weighing her down. As she treads water she can see the roof of The Landings. Her brain is calm and fuzzy, and she angles her face toward the sun.
“Hey!” a gray-haired man calls from the beach.
His khakis are rolled up, his button-down untucked. He carries a sketchbook and a small easel. She ignores him and tilts her face up.
“Hey, are you okay out there?”
Grace raises her hand and waves but he doesn’t move. He sets down his things and walks into the shallow water.
“Are you in trouble?” he yells through his hands.
She’s afraid he’s about to jump in after her, so she swims until she can stand and tries to shoo him on. He plants his feet, his hands at his hips, waiting until she gets all the way out of the water.
“Not on my watch,” he says.
She passes him without looking at his face and retrieves her bottle on the way back to the car.
The block of county buildings in Mineola is massive and imposing and barely navigable. Grace circles the courthouse twice and asks directions from a listless employee on a smoke break before she finds a sign pointing toward the jail. Once inside, the walls are a sickly yellow-tinged beige, hopelessly institutional. Brown plastic chairs are bolted to the scuffed linoleum floor.
Grace’s wet clothes cling to her skin, her hair is half-dry and stringy, her breath flammable. After passing through a metal detector—a female security guard raises her eyes at Grace’s appearance—she follows the posted arrows to an old wood-and-glass door that looks more like the entry to a principal’s office than a jailhouse. Inside there is a high counter with a Plexiglas partition and a metal grate through which to talk. A few policemen wander about a series of desks, bantering and laughing. Their pace is easy and carefree, almost old-fashioned, until they see Grace knocking on the window. She is thankful for the wall between them. At least her hives, crusty from the salt water, have stopped itching so she’s not clawing at her chest
.
“I’m here to see a prisoner?” she says too loudly.
The young cop at the front, his biceps pumped up bigger than the rest of him, squints his eyes at her. He points to a wall with a list of visiting hours and protocol. She skips over the small type, unable to read the words, but at the end of the list, in all capitals, she’s able to make out, No Exceptions!
“Excuse me,” she says into the speak-through.
He ambles back.
“Yeah?” he says into the microphone, a small smile curling the edges of his mouth.
The others toss bemused glances in her direction.
“It’s extremely important. I’m with the press.”
The lie slides off her drunken tongue.
The policeman must be bored enough pushing papers that his curiosity keeps him playing along. He sits and types something into the computer.
“Who are you trying to see, ma’am?”
“Charles Raggatt.”
He licks his lips.
“Charles Raggatt. He’s a special case,” he says. “I’ll check, but I don’t think anyone’s getting in there.” His fingertips click the keyboard. “Nope. Closed for business.”
“You don’t understand,” she says. “He would want to see me.”
“I’m sure he’d want a lot of things,” he says, and the older cop behind him suppresses a laugh. “I don’t make the rules.”
Her giant welt throbs.
“Please,” she says, her palm against the partition.
He shakes his head, and then crosses his bulging arms. One of the policemen behind him twirls his finger next to his temple. Cuckoo.
“This is fucked,” Grace says, slapping her hand against the plastic, leaving a smudged handprint.
“We’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the cop says with condescending measure, used to crazies wandering in.
“Officer,” she says, trying to keep her voice low and steady.
“Sergeant,” he says.
“Sorry. Sergeant. I work for a magazine.”
His cocked head and squinting eyes say, “Sure, lady.”
But she doesn’t have anything to follow it up with. The man’s face softens a bit when she falls silent.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, backing away. “I’m very sorry.”
Her flip-flops echo with each retreating step.
The sky is a muted pink as the parking lot empties out around her. She sits and watches the color seep out of the horizon from her windshield. When it’s dark, she drives out to the backside of Hickton, to the Econo Lodge, and parks across the street in the weedy, cracked-asphalt parking lot of a shut-down trophy company. There are only three motel rooms lit, the sallow light outlining cheap polyester curtains. She drinks down the rest of the vodka without a breath.
Grace sees Charles’s face in a dark window, searching for a reason not to kill himself, wondering if anyone would care if he did. She closes her eyes and tries to steady her spinning head. She is running out of time.
She puts her car in reverse, or she thinks she does. But when she jams on the accelerator, the car leaps forward and she is confused, wasted, and she spins the wheel and misses the brake and skids straight into a cement pylon. The edge of her right eye cracks against the steering wheel. And then it is quiet, with only the faraway sound of the highway and the ticking of her stalled engine. She opens the door and wobbles on quivering legs to the front of the car, where she sees through one eye that the fender is smashed and a headlight is broken out. There are no cars around and no one has seen her, but she can’t risk the police. Her hands shake as she carefully adjusts the car into park and restarts the ignition.
———
“Some of the things that happened between Raggatt and the victim we may never be able to clarify to our satisfaction,” said Lt. Jim Batrone. “There were only two people in that room.”
———
CHAPTER 27
Grace double-parks her damaged car in front of Brian’s building. He buzzes her in.
When he opens the door, his face constricts in horror.
“Oh my God. Grace, what happened?” He moves aside to let her inside. His hand goes out to touch her shoulder but she moves away. “Are you okay?”
She catches herself in a small mirror that hangs by the door.
“Wow,” she says.
Her eye is swollen and turning purple, her clothes are still damp, her skin streaked red from scratching. She is a wreck. She starts to giggle, then to laugh. Brian joins in but then he stops. She gathers herself and falls into a chair.
“I don’t know why I came here,” she says.
“What happened?”
“A little accident in the car,” she says too glibly.
“Did you go to the doctor?”
“I’m fine,” she says, waving him away.
Brian is bewildered. He goes to the kitchen searching for some ice and returns with a bag of frozen peas and a towel.
“Thanks,” she says.
The cold stings her face.
“Grace,” he says quietly. “I can’t believe you drove like this.”
“I can see out of my other,” she says, pointing to her left eye.
“No, I mean lit. I can smell you from here.” He leans forward with his hands on his knees. “I don’t know what to say. You could have killed yourself. Jesus. Where have you been, anyway? I’ve been worried about you.”
“None of that,” she says.
And finally there is a spark of anger from him.
“You don’t get to decide, Grace.”
He stands and runs his hands through his hair, pacing before the window.
“People don’t just not show up for work and run away after spending the night and drive drunk,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” she says, chewing on her thumbnail. “I’ve been doing something. Trying to help this kid.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Out at Emeryville College. The boy they say killed the girl.”
“I don’t get it,” he says. “I thought they caught him and he confessed.”
“They did. He did. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes sense because he was a loser. A bad person,” Brian says in a high voice, near hysterical. “What are you talking about?”
“I know him. We talk. I know it didn’t happen like they say it did, like they’ll prosecute him for. He’s not some psychopath.”
“So his lawyers can explain it for him.”
“They won’t! Because he doesn’t want to save himself.”
Brian is down on his knees in front of her.
“Stop, Grace. Stop it.”
“I can’t,” she says. “It’s too important.”
He leans back on his heels and puts his face in his hands.
“Why don’t you just come back to work and we can date like normal people? Why is that so bad? Why is being normal such a terrible thing?”
Her uncovered eye darts around the room.
“Why do you care about this guy so much? Why does it matter? He killed a girl, Grace.”
Brian stands and goes back over to the couch.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” she asks.
“What?”
“You. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“Goddamnit, Grace,” he says in a plaintive voice, “this isn’t about me. This is crazy. Just stop.”
“I’m serious,” she says, dropping the peas into her lap.
He exhales, drained, his chin in his palm.
“What if that one thing, that one moment of darkness or selfishness was your definer?”
He shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter what came before it or after it, nothing will ever measure up. Nothing else will ever matter,” she says. “That one second determines you. Forever.”
“Okay,” he says, “so it’s not fair. But it happens all the time. That’s the way the world wo
rks.” He is spent. She wonders if it is enough to make him let her go. “Walk away, Grace. You need to pull yourself together.”
Brian runs her a hot shower and hands her a T-shirt and boxers. He tucks her in on the couch. She sleeps like a stone, then wakes sometime in the night. Miraculously her car has not been towed, and there it waits, its hazard lights the heartbeat of a battered body.
###
“How are you?” Grace asks.
“My mood is pretty dark, I guess. I’m not sleeping very well. My thoughts get jumbled. I’m doing okay though,” Charles says.
“I tried to see you.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday. But they wouldn’t let me in.”
“That would have been nice. I would have liked that. A real visitor. My parents were supposed to come this past weekend from Ohio but they didn’t. My dad had the flu.”
“Have you heard from Caroline?”
She is sorry she asked as soon she has said the words.
“Nah. She’s busy. With school and field hockey and stuff.”
“I’ve been thinking about Sarah,” Grace says. “And how she must have felt out of control. Maybe even desperate.”
“Yeah. I think drugs made her do things that she never would have done otherwise.”
“Like what?”
“Like the money borrowing. It got more and more intense, until one time I told her ‘no more.’ I wanted so much to help her. I didn’t care about going to class or doing homework or writing papers. All I cared about was her.”
“What did she do when you cut her off?”
“She looked like I had just slapped her. She was stunned. She said, ‘I thought we were friends.’ I felt terrible. She walked out.”
“What did you do?” Grace asks.
