The Secret Hour

by Luanne Rice

  Credit card records had confirmed her destination, narrowed the search to Newport. The file contained Newport Police interviews with the Seven Chimneys Inn's owners, chambermaids, and other guests; statements given by a bartender at the Candy Store and a waitress at the Pier. Records of Kate's follow-up calls, at least one a month, followed.

  “That's really about it,” Viera said. “All we have.”

  “Are you sure?” Kate asked. “No one else saw her, talked to her?”

  “Not that we found. I have indications from O'Neill's office that she went on from here . . . something about Massachusetts.”

  “She was in Connecticut, too.”

  “Ahh. Well . . .”

  “I know; I have to contact them. I've already been to Connecticut.”

  “Merrill's stomping grounds. They have him, you know. Maybe you could talk to someone there.”

  “I have,” Kate said, picturing John O'Rourke's hard eyes.

  “Sorry I couldn't be of more help,” Joe Viera said, standing to shake her hand.

  Numb, Kate walked out into the cold afternoon. She hadn't learned anything new, and discouragement flooded her body. What was she doing here? She had taken a leave of absence from work, searching for something she might never find: one tiny thread, one unturned stone, one vague hint of what had happened to her sister.

  The interview had done one thing: brought back family memories.

  When they were children, their parents had driven them north, so they could compare the beaches of Chincoteague with those of Rhode Island. They had stayed at the Sheraton Islander, visited the Breakers, Rosecliff, and Mrs. Astor's Beechwood. Walking the cliff walk, they had watched yachts racing offshore, and they had seen a man land a record-breaking striped bass on the rocks in front of Doris Duke's house.

  But one of Kate's happiest memories was of dinner at the Pier. They had ordered oysters and lobster bisque, sole stuffed with huge pieces of lobster, and baked stuffed lobster. Their father had pronounced the oysters as good as Chincoteague's, and Kate and Willa had eaten lobster till they were both too full to move. The salad dressing had had tiny mustard seeds in it, and their mother had been delighted.

  “Mustard seeds mean faith,” she had said. “All you need is the tiniest bit for it to sprout and grow. And you can do anything with faith. . . .”

  Kate went to the Pier in search of a little faith and a sense that Willa had once been there.

  The hostess led her to a table by the window. She sat by herself, scanning the tables, wishing she knew where her sister had sat. The police had told her what Willa had eaten that night, so Kate ordered the same things: salad, oysters, stuffed sole. It was all delicious, and the view of the harbor and the soaring Newport Bridge was dramatic; fortified, closing her eyes, Kate could almost feel her sister's hand on her shoulder, hear her whisper, “Keep looking, Katy. I need you to find me!”

  “I will,” Kate said out loud.

  She was sitting alone, and people at nearby tables turned to see whom she was talking to. They probably thought she was crazy. Kate had started thinking that herself, lately. Before taking her leave of absence, unable to concentrate at work, she would close her eyes and talk to Willa.

  Or, riding the Metro from her town house on Capitol Hill to her office in Foggy Bottom—just blocks up from her old Watergate apartment—she would imagine Willa sitting beside her. She dreamed of the conversations they would finally have: Willa explaining what had happened between her and Andrew, Kate listening, telling her sister that she forgave her; Kate longed for that opportunity. Because her heart had been so rock-hard and angry when Willa had left.

  “I'm crazy,” Kate said out loud, sitting alone at the Pier, proving that she really was.

  Her life was on hold; there was no doubt about it. Once the top staff scientist on the Academy's marine environment team, she had turned her files over to a colleague, until she could find out about her sister. She knew the work she was capable of, and she was far from doing it.

  “Come back, Willa,” she said, staring through the reflections in the big windows, straight out to the Newport Bridge. “Come back and let me forgive you. . . .”

  She stopped herself. Did that mean that she had started to believe Detective Viera, that she thought Willa had a choice? Could it be possible her sister was hiding somewhere, too ashamed to return home?

  No, Kate thought, staring at the dark harbor. No, it was not. The bridge's lights ran between the two tall towers, graceful strands of illuminated pearls. Willa had crossed that bridge, but where had she gone? Kate had checked Connecticut and Rhode Island, which left only one place.

  Massachusetts.

  Fairhaven wasn't far away; just thirty or so miles north and a little east. Kate had to keep looking for Willa. She thought of the full moon, high and serene, exerting pull over the tides: No one could see it. As children, she, Matt, and Willa had all found it magical and mysterious. Kate's need to find Willa was like that: a powerful force deep inside. Who knew what unturned stone might be there for only Kate—Willa's sister—to see?

  Kate could make the ride to Fairhaven in about an hour. After that, she knew she had to return to Washington, to try to put her life back together.

  Besides, she had already gotten through the hard part, hadn't she? Storming the bastions of Greg Merrill's defense, confronting John O'Rourke and demanding he tell her what he knew . . . the fact that he hadn't responded with any measurable degree of human compassion and hadn't seemed to care that Willa—a woman who perfectly fit the profile of his client's victims—was still missing.

  If it was true that defense lawyers were all heartless bastards, then John O'Rourke was certainly a prime example. The thing was, Kate saw right through his façade. She knew hurt when she saw it. She wished she could have softened his heart—gotten him to tell her something that might have helped Willa, maybe helped himself in the process. She had the strong feeling that they were kindred spirits.

  And he had wonderful kids. His love for them shined right through his hard shell. Kate hoped Maggie had gotten the scarf and glasses, that she would go out on this Halloween night, having the time of her life, feeling the aviator spirit in her own heart.

  The waitress brought the check. Kate put her credit card down on the tray, then took a last sip of coffee to fortify her for the ride to Massachusetts. Pushing back her chair, she left the restaurant of family memories for the next stage of her journey.

  The miles felt long and tedious. Bonnie kept her company, curled in the passenger seat. The radio was playing, a local station that favored jazz. Perhaps Kate should have waited for morning, when she could actually see something. But her heart was in command of this odyssey, inner compulsions driving her northward to find the places her sister had been. She stopped at a Maxi-Mart for more coffee, and sipped it as she drove, to keep herself awake and alert.

  Heading northeast, she crossed the Tiverton Bridge, cut through the mill city of Fall River. Streetlights lit her way, flashing through the car as she passed beneath. Lizzie Borden had killed her parents here a century ago, and Kate felt the chill of murder in the air still. Famous killers, forgotten victims. Fascinated by Lizzie, who even knew her parents' names?

  It was like that with Greg Merrill, Kate thought. Who were his victims? Anne-Marie Hicks, Jacqueline Somebody, Beth or Betsy . . . Seven women altogether, and Kate could only remember three. Was it a psychological trick she was playing on herself: to not remember his known victims so she wouldn't have to imagine Willa's name joining the list?

  She had read articles about Merrill, seen his face on the news, dreamed of him in her sleep. He had gotten into her mind and imagination. Why had he been so fixated on breakwaters? Why had every victim been found wedged in a stone structure meant to hold back the forces of nature, meant to stem the ocean tides from destroying beach and property—from destroying life?

  Greg Merrill. She said the name out loud: it sounded solid, then liquid. Greg: hard. Merrill: flowing w
ater. Like rock and water—like breakwaters.

  Lizzie Borden. A child's name. A cute, friendly name for a woman who had used an ax from her family's own garage to hack her parents to bits.

  Who were these people, and how did they do what they were accused of doing? Lizzie's cold spirit filled the car, following Kate through the Fall River streets, where signs of Halloween mischief were everywhere: smashed pumpkins, toilet-papered trees, shaving-creamed parked cars.

  Merging onto Route 195, Kate headed east. Jazz played softly over the radio; on the half-hour, news broke in, local and late-breaking, delivered by a soothing, reassuring, silver-tongued reader. This stretch of highway was unlit, running through dark, flat countryside, the black water of inland marshes flowing seaward on the right side.

  At New Bedford, the city lights lit the sky with an eerie orange glow. Kate saw billboards for flights and ferries to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. A huge black whale dominated one sign, exhorting passersby to visit the Whaling Museum.

  Staring at the black whale, Kate felt a shiver of excitement.

  A clue? Could it be?

  Had Willa come up here to see the museum? Since she was a very young child, she had been fascinated with marine mammals. Their brother had taken them offshore in his boat twice every year—spring and fall—for the great whale migrations north and south along the Atlantic Seaboard.

  Kate remembered holding her baby sister on her lap, Matt throttling the boat down, keeping a respectful distance . . .

  “What IS it?” Willa had asked, clutching Kate's neck, her voice filled with awe and delight.

  “A mother humpback and her baby,” Kate had said.

  “See the white fins?” Matt had flung back, ever-present cigarette dangling from his lower lip, cap pulled low to block the sun. “That's how you know she's a humpback.”

  “Hump-back,” Willa had pronounced.

  “Good girl!” Kate had said, and Matt had squinted over with pride.

  “What's she doing now?” Matt asked as the mother swam in a big circle, creating huge bubbles on the wave tops.

  “Feeding!” Willa had exclaimed, laughing.

  “Damn right, peanut,” Matt had said. “Her breath is one big depth charge, exploding all the little fish to the surface.”

  “She must be hungry!”

  “Yep,” Matt had said, grinning. “You could say that. Hungry like an army.”

  “You're a smart one,” Kate had said, tousling Willa's sun-bleached golden brown hair. “You'll make a good oceanographer some day.”

  “Don't listen to her, peanut,” Matt had laughed, lighting a new cigarette from the stub of the last one, chucking the butt into the sea. “You're gonna oyster with me. We'll be Harris and Harris, and we'll snag all the oysters from Chincoteague to Ocean City till we find the King Pearl.”

  “Queen Pearl,” Kate had said. “If you drag her into the oyster business, you'd better at least open your mind, slack off on the sexism.”

  “Lighten up, Katy-pie.”

  “You know, throwing that butt into the sea might ruin your take next year?”

  “Yeah? How d'you figure?”

  “Say a bluefish eats it, thinking it's a nice tasty minnow. The filter clogs the fish's digestive tract . . . the fish dies. One broken link on the food chain. That bluefish isn't alive to eat the menhaden that eat the eels that fall in chewed-up bits to the bottom of the sea to feed your precious oysters . . .”

  “Hey, I'm a litterbug. What do you want to do—sue me?”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “You grew up with watermen,” Matt had said. “You know more about the sea than any of those fancy professors teaching you biology and chemistry and whatever the hell else you're going into debt studyin'. You could teach them, Katy.”

  “Yeah, well, it won't get me a job.”

  Half scowling, half smiling, Matt had dragged on his cigarette, shaking his head.

  “More whales,” Willa had said, ignoring her siblings, staring avidly across the waves.

  At an age when most little kids were learning their ABC's, Willa Harris was dazzling her oysterman brother and almost-scientist sister with her knowledge of cetaceans. Matt had circled the area, and the three Harris siblings had watched the whales breach and feed for forty minutes, until they had finally sounded for good.

  Passing the museum billboard, the huge cut-out whale silhouette remained visible in her rearview mirror. Kate stared at it for another moment—wondering whether Willa had seen the exhibit during her time up north—then took the turnoff for Fairhaven.

  She cracked the windows. The air smelled like the sea. Bonnie stood on her hind legs, nose to the opening. New Bedford was still a busy port, and ghostly spars lined the skyline. Fishing boats, sailboats, vessels in drydock were everywhere. Kate thought, with a stab, that Matt would love it here. Memories of him were painful; Willa's disappearance had killed something in their brother.

  Always prone toward isolation, Matt had become a true recluse. The sea was his only friend. People said he talked to himself, steering in and out of the channel. He was often seen at the whaling grounds—where humpbacks still made their twice-yearly passage—smoking one cigarette after another as he watched the whales go by.

  Matt lived in his tiny, sagging oyster shack, surrounded by mountains of shucked white shells. Kate's personal legend had it that he still looked for the Queen Pearl, believing that finding it would somehow make his sister come home. Bearded and gaunt, Matt was known as “the hermit” to the kids of Chincoteague.

  Kate shivered and sighed, pushing the picture from her mind. One sibling at a time, she thought. Tonight was all about Willa. . . .

  Connected by a small bridge to New Bedford, Fairhaven was smaller and quainter, but just as salty. Kate reached into the bag beside her, removing the sheet of paper given her by Detective Abraham O'Neill.

  It listed the name and address of the Texaco station where Willa's credit card had been used. Peering at the address, Kate shook open the map she'd printed out from the Internet and looked up 412 Spouter Street.

  Straight 0.6 miles, left 1.1 miles, immediate right at the traffic light.

  Kate followed the directions through boatyards, past an office complex, into a neighborhood of three-family houses. At the intersection, she stopped at a red light and looked right: a strip mall with a Texaco sign at the street.

  Catering to the residents, the stores were somewhat . . . humble, Kate thought.

  A Laundromat, a recycling center, and a convenience store with several gas pumps. Willa was here, Kate thought, the chills coming back to make her tremble. It's not a theory, it's evidence. Her credit card was used to pump seven gallons—ten dollars and fifty cents' worth—of gas. Kate held the sheet of paper, her hand shaking.

  Parking her car in front, telling Bonnie she'd be right back, she left the radio playing and walked beneath the brightly lit canopy over to the pumps. A sign indicated that a credit card could be inserted into the pump itself, the gas type and octane level selected, and the transaction completed without a signature.

  Kate's heart fell. Although she knew this, the fact that whoever had used Willa's card could have done so without signing—Willa herself, or someone else—she had wished it was otherwise.

  She walked into the store. A man sat at the counter, reading a magazine.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  “Yes?” he asked, looking up.

  “Are you the owner?”

  The man laughed. “No,” he said, as if it was a joke.

  “Have you worked here long?”

  He smiled. “Three years,” he said, making Kate's skin tingle.

  “Do you . . .” she began, her throat choking up, pulling the photo from her handbag, “know this woman?”

  The man stared at Willa's picture.

  To see better, he raised it to his face. Kate found herself staring at his hands. They were clean, soft-looking. Service station employees never pumped gas or fixed cars
anymore. But what if those hands had touched Willa? What if she had come here, to fill her tank, and encountered this man alone with his magazine? What if he had wanted something from her that she'd been unwilling to give?

  What if he had dragged her into a dark, private place, hurt her, made it so she couldn't return home to Kate and Matt?

  The man looked up, a kind expression in his dark eyes.

  “No. I was not here the night she came. I know of her, of course. The police questioned us. No one saw her; she—or someone—just swiped her card. You are . . . her sister?”

  “How can you tell?” Kate asked, her eyes wet with tears.

  “You look alike,” he said, looking at the picture again.

  “Do you know anything? Anything at all that can help me?”

  The man shook his head. At the sight of tears now falling freely down her cheeks—another dead end, another disappointment—he handed her a small napkin from the pile beside the coffeepot.

  Kate knew. He wasn't the one.

  “I'm sorry. The police checked security tapes, of course. If anything was found, we do not know. They did not tell us. I am sorry.”

  “It's okay,” Kate said. Taking Willa's picture from his hand, she bowed her head and walked away. Her chest rumbled—an earthquake of emotions was locked inside her body. Her organs shook. Her bones reverberated, the connecting tissue strung tighter than guitar strings. Her skin screamed, holding it all together.

  Running to her car, Kate felt the howl building.

  It was a hurricane; it would shake the world.

  She started up the engine. Bonnie couldn't help, although she tried. Licking Kate's hand, she whimpered for attention. Kate hardly felt or heard the dog. Willa's credit card had been used right here, in this very place; it might have been yesterday, today, this instant, for the feeling of immediacy pounding in Kate's brain. Her fingers ached, wanting to hold her sister's hand, stroke her face.