by Luanne Rice
“Dr. Beckwith thinks I have a God complex,” Greg said, shaking his head ruefully. “I give, so I can take away. Or give, as I so choose. I gave that girl those last minutes, John. And believe me, it was a gift. I did things to her, and she liked them. So—I killed her mind, but left her body alive.”
“The tide,” John reminded him, “was in control . . . you misjudged the time that day.” He knew that Greg always spent the last hour with his victims, slipping away just before the tide rose over the top of the breakwater to drown them.
He didn't want to get his feet wet.
“I kill in those girls what I hate most in myself . . . Dr. Beckwith gets it,” Greg said, as if John hadn't even spoken, his flaring nostrils the only sign of internal disturbance.
“I don't think Dr. Beckwith has reached a conclusion yet, Greg,” John said evenly. “He hasn't told you that, has he?”
Greg laughed sadly, shaking his head. “That would be counterproductive, wouldn't it? If I know where Dr. Beckwith is going with me, he might suspect me of trying to fake thoughts and symptoms. No, I just know.”
“How do you know?”
“It's not really such a mystery, John,” Greg said. “I'm in Mensa, remember? My intuition is more finely tuned than lay people know. I've probably read more about cases like mine than any psychiatrist alive. I'm just telling you what I'd say about me if I were the doctor. Don't read too much into it,” he continued, leaning forward to grip his Bible again. “The Lord steers my boat; I only row. I speak to whomever you ask me to; I'm humbly grateful for your excellent representation, John. Even though you shouldn't talk about what you don't know. You don't know I lost track of the time, and I don't like you saying it. Okay?”
“Sure, Greg.”
Merrill nodded, satisfied. “Anyway, thank you for putting me in touch with Dr. Beckwith. Now, is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
John took the file of Greg's testimony from his briefcase and laid it on the table between them. He reached into his pocket and touched the photograph of Willa Harris. Picturing Kate's face, the tears glistening on her freckled cheeks, he closed his eyes. He was gripped by internal conflict: serving his client versus . . . what? Helping a sister find answers? Satisfying his own curiosity? His eyelids flicked open, and he raised his eyes to meet Greg Merrill's.
“Tell me something, Greg.”
“Anything, John.”
“Fairhaven, Massachusetts,” John said, watching for Greg's reaction.
A small smile touched Greg's thin lips. His cheeks dimpled, but his eyes remained flat, without affect. “Ah, yes. Sleeping Beauty.”
“Tell me.”
“You have it there, in the file. I've told you already, haven't I?”
“Tell me again.” Then, softening his tone because he saw Greg's smile disappear, “Please.”
“I'm sensitive, John,” Greg said, his chin trembling. “I don't like it when you're harsh with me.”
“I know. I'm sorry. Please, tell me again. About Fairhaven.”
“Okay.” Smile back, forgiving, touching the Bible for luck or comfort. “I was passing through . . .”
He might be speaking about a regular business trip: a traveling salesman, stopping in a seaside town for lunch, John thought.
“I had to go to the bathroom. I pulled into a parking lot, to relieve myself . . . it was behind a Laundromat, I think. In one of those little strip malls, with a convenience store and a card shop. The girl's house was out back, across the lot. I just happened to turn my head . . . I saw her bedroom light go on . . .”
Greg's eyes became misty. He experienced fugue states; John had watched him go in and out. Recounting an event—one of his killings or stalkings—his eyes would glaze over, his mouth might get dry. He'd speak with such bottomless longing, as if he were describing the long-lost love of his life.
“Why then?” Greg asked. “Why that moment? I mean, I was sitting in the car. Had to relieve myself against a brick wall . . . if she hadn't turned on her bedroom light, if there hadn't been a split second before she pulled the curtain. Thin white curtains that didn't quite meet. I looked through the crack.”
John listened. He had heard this before, and his heart kicked again: the timing always seemed so capricious. Half a minute one way or the other, and Greg Merrill would have just passed by.
“She was lovely. Thirteen, going on fourteen, I'd say. She didn't know who she was yet. Didn't know the power she had . . . I crossed the parking lot. Scaled the anchor fence—snagged my jeans on a rusty edge. Walked right through her yard . . . someone had put an old rowboat by the house. I pulled it over, climbed up, and watched through the space between the curtains till she went to sleep.”
“Did anyone see you? Catch you?” John asked, his hand on Willa's picture.
“No. I was like the night wind—swift, sure, invisible. I wanted her, though. My mind was going . . . even had the breakwater in mind. The big rocky one in New Bedford. You know—right near the boat that goes to the Vineyard . . .”
“I've seen it.”
“But it wasn't to be,” Greg said, shaking his head. The film had left his gaze, like the third eyelid rolling back from a cat's eye as he emerged from the trance. “Her window was locked, and her father was home. I could hear his voice from inside . . .”
“That's the only reason?”
“What other one would there be?”
John's fingers brushed the picture and he found himself wondering whether the convenience store had had gas pumps, whether Willa Harris had interrupted Greg and become his second-choice victim.
“I don't know, Greg. You tell me.”
Merrill shook his head. “That's all. I wasn't ready to get caught . . . didn't want to get beaten up by some nasty fisherman. That's not how I wanted to come in . . .”
“I know; it's not how you ‘came in,' ” John agreed. Then looking directly into Greg's eyes, “What time of year was it? You remember?”
Greg closed his eyes, sniffing the air. “Spring,” he said. “I can still smell the flowers in her garden. Last spring.”
“Spring . . . like April?”
“Maybe,” Greg said. “Because it was still cool enough for her to have the windows closed . . . they weren't an air-conditioner family, John. Simple, low-cost. You know? You should have seen that rowboat I stood on. Really old.”
“Okay,” John said, thinking of Willa's April 6 gas receipt. He packed the papers back into his files, then shoved the files into his brown leather briefcase. The overhead lights hummed. Food smells drifted into the closed room. Greg pushed his chair back; he was fed in his room, meals in a Styrofoam box, three times a day.
“Oh, Greg,” John said, his voice casual even though his pulse had taken off, racing as he took hold of the picture in his pocket. “One last thing.”
“It's dinnertime,” Greg said, apologetically, on his feet.
“I know . . . just this.” John held up Willa's picture. “Ever seen her?”
Greg hesitated. John stared hard at his eyes. Greg reached out, to take the picture for a closer look, but for some reason, John wouldn't let him touch it. He wasn't sure why, but an image of Kate's plaintive eyes filled his mind. He held tight to the photo and pulled back slightly.
“Ever seen her?” John repeated.
Greg tilted his head. His flat eyes rarely betrayed any emotion. Even when he was acting the part—voice rising or dropping with great drama, shoulders hunched, head shaking—his eyes remained dead, like a shark's. But right now, looking at Willa Harris's smiling picture, John could swear he saw a flicker.
That was it: just a flash, a small swell, as if a great fish had passed just beneath the water's surface. A rise, and then nothing. The sea was undisturbed, and John was left wondering whether there had been anything there at all.
“No, John,” Greg said. “I'm sorry.”
John waited. He watched Greg's eyes, hoping to see ripples.
Nothing.
“I've never seen her,” Greg said pleasantly.
Called by the smell of his next meal, Greg Merrill turned to go. Reverently holding his Bible, he departed the small room, left his lawyer holding the picture of a smiling young woman, and padded down the hall in the company of a guard.
John stood to leave. The stitches in his head had really begun to pound. He stared down into Willa Harris's sweet face and felt a ridiculous shock of betrayal. How could you do it? he wanted to ask her. How could you have hurt your sister that way?
chapter 7
Two and a half days passed; by Thursday, Kate had driven by the O'Rourke house five times. She couldn't help herself. John O'Rourke was the last and only thread connecting her to the hope of learning more about Willa. She understood it was a long shot; he had made it clear that he was forbidden by the Code of Professional Responsibility to speak to her. She also knew that she was behaving badly, like a stalker herself, driving past his house so often. Each time she went by, she'd look for the kids.
How were they? she wondered. Had John found a baby-sitter everyone liked? Had Brainer run through more brambles, making a mess of his coat again? Was it Kate's imagination, or had Bonnie fallen in love?
Because every time Kate drove past, Bonnie would press her nose to the window and run the length of the car—as if to keep Brainer's house in sight for as long as possible.
“Cool it, Bon,” Kate threw over her shoulder. “He doesn't even seem to be home.”
None of them did. John's car was never parked in the driveway; she couldn't spy the kids in their yard. Both nights, the same lights were on, as if lit by a timer. Had Kate's request somehow convinced John O'Rourke to leave town, taking his whole family with him?
Even the pumpkin she'd bought with Maggie was gone from the steps.
Finally, on her fifth trip past in two days, she parked the car across the street and stared at the house. She wished it could somehow give up all the answers she'd come to find about Willa.
Sitting back in the seat, Kate saw Teddy's soccer ball on the front lawn, Maggie's rain boots left on the porch. The broken window was boarded up. Flowered curtains hung at another window; Kate felt a pang, thinking of the children's mother. She had died in a car crash—disappeared from the kids' lives as suddenly as Willa and her parents had from her own.
Had she and John been happy? He had reacted so strongly to Kate's story of adultery; she'd been sure he had been through it himself. Kate sat very still, her heart beating hard, staring at the white house. She wondered whether John had seen it coming, seen the clues all along, not wanting to face what they meant.
The late October afternoon was bitter cold, as if winter was bearing down on them. Kate closed her eyes, forcing her curiosity away. What did it matter to her, the truth of John O'Rourke's marriage? Infidelity destroyed love. It had ripped Kate apart, causing her to question everything in her whole life.
Now, her only peace and sanity came from much farther back in time . . . from childhood, the years when she, Matt, and Willa had been each other's only family. Back in Chincoteague, long ago . . . Kate drew the memories of her little sister around her now.
Willa . . .
They had ridden on the fire trucks, swum the wild ponies across the channel on Chincoteague's Pony Penning Day; they'd gone oystering with their brother on his wide wooden boat; they'd planted petunias, their mother's favorite flower, at their parents' graves; they had cut their own Christmas trees, decorated them with old family ornaments, oyster shells, and sand dollars; Kate had taken Willa to the ballet at the Kennedy Center; she had helped her find a favorite place to study at the Library of Congress; she had taken her to Senate hearings on water pollution and the shellfish industry; she had bought her her first set of watercolors.
Life with Willa . . .
When she was small, in third grade at Washington's exclusive St. Chrysogonus School, Willa had had to do a book report. Kate had taken her to the library, where they had found an entire shelf of biographies—orange volumes with the titles Florence Nightingale, Woman of Medicine; Amelia Earhart, Girl Pilot; George Washington Carver, Boy Scientist.
“Who are they, Katy?” Willa had asked, trying to decide.
“Read their biographies, and then you'll know.”
“But who will I like most?”
“You won't know till you read them.”
Willa had laughed, and Kate had smiled. “You know me, Katy. Who do you think I'll like most?”
“I think . . . Amelia Earhart.”
“Because you like her, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Who was she?”
Kate, opening the little orange book, had flipped through, read one of Amelia's quotes: “‘Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.' ”
“Tell me, Katy!”
“She was a woman pilot, one of the first. She had a really strong, wonderful spirit, and she proved that women can do anything.”
“Like what?”
“Like, read the book, and you'll find out. . . .” Kate had teased.
Willa was riveted to the orange volume, reading it straight through. Fascinated by the little red airplane that had first captivated Amelia, she had also been torn apart by Amelia's loss.
“Wasn't she brave?” Kate had asked, tucking her sister in that night. “Did you like how she challenged all those prejudices people used to have, about women not flying?”
Willa had nodded, huddled under her covers with the book. Kate had sat down on the edge of her bed; she had an ulterior motive for asking. Having finished her master's in molecular biology from Georgetown, she had gotten her first job with the National Maritime Fisheries. Her duties included checking shellfish beds from the Chesapeake to Penobscot Bay, and she'd been thinking about getting a pilot's license to make it easier to get them home to Chincoteague.
“Where did Amelia go?” Willa had asked. “Why can't they find her?”
“She disappeared,” Kate had replied. “It's a mystery.”
“Her plane crashed?”
“They think so. No one is sure.”
“Someone must have seen her. . . . Someone must know where she went.”
“The Pacific is a huge ocean,” Kate had said, stroking her sister's silky hair.
“And it swallowed her up?” Willa had asked, captivated and grief-stricken.
“I don't know, Willie. Maybe she landed on an island . . . a beautiful desert island with palm trees and freshwater lagoons . . . filled with oysters for her to eat and pearls for her to wear.”
“And pink sand on the beach . . .”
“And rare birds in the trees . . .”
“A magical place,” Willa had whispered, her voice breaking.
“Like Narnia or Oz,” Kate had whispered back. She had read her sister the books of C. S. Lewis and L. Frank Baum, and she found herself conjuring up the places the authors had created, wanting to soothe Willa.
“I hope so,” Willa had said, starting to sob. “Katy, I hope Amelia's on a wonderful, enchanted island with a lagoon.”
“She'd be very old, if she were still alive.”
“That's okay . . . I want her to be old.” Willa had wept. “Everyone should get to be old. . . .”
Had she been thinking of their own parents, taken from them so young? Kate wasn't sure, but she had held her little sister, deciding for the moment not to mention flying lessons. Although she wound up taking them—getting her pilot's license and sharing a chartered plane with several other scientists—that night she just rocked Willa to sleep, mourning with her for the loss of their parents and Amelia.
Death had been so familiar to them; they were orphans, after all. But disappearance had seemed impossible, too horrifying to contemplate. Thinking of Amelia Earhart just falling out of the sky, swallowed up by the sea, had seemed so terrible, that the Harris sisters had had to invent a beautiful island of pink sand and rare birds just to accept her loss.
Willa had started sketching,
then painting: panels of color and line, telling the rich, emotional story of Amelia Earhart. She had layered truth and myth, imagination and reality, creating a story and a world of what might have happened, learning to be an artist in the process.
“Willa,” Kate said out loud in her car in front of the O'Rourkes' house, holding tight to the steering wheel.
If only her sister could be on a desert island, a magical place; if only there were some explanation for the six months she had been gone; if only she would walk thorough the wardrobe door, or click her heels three times to come home; if only she had ruby slippers; if only she had gone off painting somewhere; if only she weren't missing.
“Willa,” Kate said again, but this time the name became a wail. She heard it echoing in the car, her voice reverberating in her ears.
All Kate's praying, wishing, cursing, begging with the forces of the universe, and bargaining with the fates, should have brought her sister back. The many nights of sitting still, staring at the stars, wondering whether she had somehow caused Willa to stay away, to be too afraid of Kate's anger to come home.
And all those nights of hating Andrew—despising her husband for hiring Willa as his intern, for having her work late, for preying on her and getting her to fall in love with him. . . . And—for Kate couldn't, after six months of soul-searching, deny this part—hating Willa.
She had watched her sister grow up. Willa had always been shy and beautiful, more comfortable painting alone on the dunes than being with other people, especially men. When she turned twenty-one, something changed. Her inner grace began to radiate outwards. She wasn't so withdrawn; she began to go out more. Andrew noticed, joking to Kate, “I think we've got a heartbreaker on our hands.” And Kate had joked back, “As long as her heart's not the one being broken.”
She'd spent so many nights awake, wondering: How had the affair started? Who had initiated it? Where had they gone together? Had Willa pleased Andrew more than Kate did? Kate—she couldn't pretend this part wasn't true—had wanted to attack her sister. Willa's heart hadn't been broken: Kate's had.
Six months, Kate thought, holding the steering wheel. A six-month-long time of darkness and despair.
