The Halo Effect: A Novel

by Anne D. LeClaire

  After a while I returned to the house and replaced the flashlight where I’d found it. When I switched on the lamp on the table Sophie used as a writing desk, I saw the stack of manuscript pages. I reached for them.

  The introduction was personal. I hadn’t expected that and wasn’t prepared for it. Sophie wrote of Lucy’s murder, even writing of the day we had both stood and identified her bloodied book bag and ruined cell phone, the morning we had gone to pick out the coffin that would hold her ruined body. I forced myself to continue, reliving the horror, the shock, fighting a sense of violation. The book would be, she wrote, both our personal story and those of other parents of lost children, and an exploration of how our society had become one in which thousands of children disappeared each year or were murdered without an answering and sustained outrage. The first chapter related the story of a couple from Tennessee whose nine-year-old son had been kidnapped and his body found a week later, still dressed in his Little League uniform. The killer was never found. A tonsure-like circle at the top of my skull tingled, grew warm. I swallowed, continued to read the stories. The parents from San Diego. Their daughter had been eighteen when she disappeared, three years older than Lucy, and they continued to hold on to the hope that someday she would find her way home. The circle on my skull grew hotter, tighter. A phrase came unbidden to mind. I blew my top. The single mother from Key West whose son was fourteen when he was shot by another boy. Fourteen. Almost Lucy’s age. The couple from Utah. Their child was two. Two. Rage spread through my chest like a stain. The buzzing in my head grew to a throb. Unable to endure any more, I dropped the pages and let my head fall into my hands.

  “Will?” Sophie’s hand was on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  My rage, the anger that had retreated that summer, slumbering like a junkyard cur in the shadows, came back as hot and piercing as ever, so intense I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  She stood behind me, drew my head against her belly, still warm from sleep, and cradled it there. “I know. I know,” she crooned and swayed, rocking my body. After a few minutes, she withdrew and sat beside me. “I’m sorry, Will. I wanted to tell you more about the book before you read it. Prepare you for it.”

  I still did not dare speak, swallowed the acridness of anger. Out the window beyond her head, the horizon was showing first light.

  She took my silence as a sign to continue. “Some days when I’m writing, I just break down and sob. It is all so unbearably sad.”

  Usually so intuitive about me, she misread my rage for grief.

  “Strangely,” she said, “the work consoles me. At least when I’m writing. Of course when I’m done nothing has changed. It doesn’t bring her back.”

  “Then why do it?” I asked, unable to conceal my bitterness.

  “I need to know how is it possible that life has become so expendable, our children’s lives, Will, that we are no longer even shocked when we read or hear of another killing, another child lost. Somehow the value of life has been profoundly cheapened.” Her voice grew stronger. “Do you know how many children are murdered every year? Every day? Eight children and teenagers are murdered every day, Will. Every day. How could we let that happen? How can we make sense of how this is possible?”

  A line from her introduction echoed: What kind of people have we become?

  “I read somewhere that homicide has become the white noise in our society. We have to face that.”

  Her hope, her belief that she could change anything rekindled my anger. “And writing this book will change anything?”

  She shook her head. “Perhaps not. But if I don’t? Will that change anything? What was that old catchphrase? If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

  “So it makes it more bearable then?”

  “No. Not that. Never that. But we have to keep telling this truth, Will: violence begets violence.”

  Violence. My companion for so many weeks. All my dark middle-of-the-night thoughts of vengeance and retribution. The gun I had secreted in the shed.

  “We must understand that,” she continued. “We must come to grips with that. And there’s something else. Talking to other families has made me more connected and less isolated in the grief.”

  I thought of all those months grief had been a chasm that separated us, not a bridge that brought us closer.

  “Remember the story of the mustard seed?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “The man sent in search of a home that has escaped sorrow. You are seeing this too. Think of the people who are posing. The story Leon told you about Louie Johns and the son he lost. Everybody has their share of loss. No one escapes. No protection against loss in this life, Will. It’s what we do with the grief that matters. I think that you and I are each in our own way trying to do something good for Lucy’s sake.”

  Lucy.

  “I miss her so much,” she said. “I never stop missing her. Not for one day. One hour.” Her cheeks were wet with all the tears I was unable to shed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Rain would rather walk shoeless over ground glass, step barefoot over fire, than face Dr. Mallory.

  I think your dog is going to die. Her only prayer was that the shrink had forgotten what she said when she’d left the last time. Old people forgot all the time. And it wasn’t as if Rain didn’t have enough on her mind without dealing with this, because right now Duane the Lame, Duane the Once and Former Saint was at the police station where—as the detective said when he’d phoned their house last night—they were going to get to the bottom of how Lucy’s Yoda ended up in the church chapel so many months after her death. Acting as if it were some important clue or something when it was just a dumb toy. Still, it was epically stupid of Duane to have lied about it. Earlier, at breakfast, he’d said he didn’t want to go to the station. Don’t waste your breath, she could have told him. No one is even listening to you. While Duane pushed his spoon around his cornflakes, their father for once stopped being Mr. Passive and said maybe they should contact an attorney. “Don’t be ridiculous,” their mother snapped. “Why on earth would we drag a lawyer into this? It just makes people look guilty, and Duane hasn’t done anything wrong.” Clueless as usual. Oblivious. Across the table, her brother had stared at his uneaten bowl of cereal and looked as guilty as the liar he was.

  “Won’t you tell me what’s bothering you, Rain?”

  Still, he was her brother. She concentrated on sending thoughts to him, as if by focusing hard enough her unspoken words could protect him. Stand up straight. Don’t look guilty.

  “Rain?”

  Maybe her father was right. They should have hired a lawyer.

  “Won’t you let me try and help?”

  Seriously? Like anyone could help. Especially this little shrink. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her shorts. Shorts. Not a skirt today. Or even capris. Shorts just long enough to cover her scars. One good thing about whatever trouble Duane was in was that their mother was too preoccupied to be the clothes police. Rain could wear a bikini to Mass and her mother probably wouldn’t even notice. Her fingers closed around her Lucky Strike stone, the one Lucy had given her when they had exchanged stones last year and become chosen sisters, members of the Lucky Strike Stone Club. Total membership: two.

  “Rain, dear.”

  “The police came to our house yesterday.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “They were looking for Duane.”

  “Is your brother in trouble?” Dr. Mallory asked, as calmly as if Rain had told her that Duane woke up that morning and brushed his teeth.

  Duh. They didn’t show up to give him a medal. “They wanted to talk to him.” Too late, she regretted saying one word about the police and Duane. She should have realized that it would be opening a door best kept shut. Duane was a dweeb, but he was her brother. God, he’d looked so pathetic when they drove off to the police station. The thing was, there was no one to talk to about it. She supposed s
he could have gone over to see Father Gervase—she knew a priest couldn’t tell anyone what you said to him in private—but she remembered Father Gervase was the one who started this by finding and bringing Lucy’s Yoda to the police. He should have just minded his own beeswax. And now, because she couldn’t keep her mouth closed, Dr. Mallory knew.

  “Rain? Is Duane in some kind of trouble?”

  “So,” she said. “What I tell you here. It’s . . . What do you call it?” She stared at the copper bowl of mints as if the elusive word could be found there. Confidential. The word popped in place. “It’s confidential, right? I mean you can’t tell anyone what I say, right?”

  Dr. Mallory considered the question. “I am bound by privacy rules, Rain. Rules that protect what is said in counseling sessions.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I’m bound not to divulge what you say, but there are exceptions. In certain circumstances it is permissible to disclose things.”

  Of course. There was always a catch. “Like what?”

  “Well, for instance, if I determine that someone is a danger to others or to themselves. I am obligated to protect the health and safety of others as well as my patients. But anything else I am bound to keep confidential.”

  “And you can’t tell my parents what I say, right? Just because I’m a minor?”

  “What is it you want to say, Rain?”

  She looked around the room, wondered what would happen if she just got up and left. No one could stop her. Her gaze fell on a leash hanging on the doorknob—Walker’s leash, and a rush of shame heated her face. I think your dog is going to die.

  Dr. Mallory followed her gaze. “He’s fine, you know. Walker. He had an obstruction in his intestines, and the vet had to operate, but he’s fine. He’s coming home tomorrow.”

  Dr. Mallory’s voice was normal, not angry, and Rain knew she should feel relief and couldn’t figure out why it would feel better if the shrink had shouted or something. She tightened her fingers around the stone and hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake. “He lied to them,” she said. “To the police.”

  “I see.” Dr. Mallory closed her eyes a moment, thought. “Well, I wouldn’t think lying to the police is the wisest thing to do.”

  “Everybody lies.” She stared at Dr. Mallory, challenging her to argue the point.

  “Tell me more about that, Rain. Why do you think everyone lies?”

  “Because they do.” Take her mother. She lied all the time. She even lied to herself. And her dad. She thought of the roster of people she knew for a fact had lied. Teachers. Friends. Even that policeman had lied when he told Duane they would send Lucy’s Yoda out for DNA and fingerprint testing.

  “And by saying ‘everybody lies’ are you telling me that you think I lie as well?”

  Rain shrugged. “Why should you be different?”

  “In our times together, Rain, do you believe that I have been untruthful?”

  Rain shrugged again. “Well, Duane lied. He lied to the police, and he lied to our parents.”

  “Do you want to tell me more about that?”

  Not especially. But it was like once she started, she couldn’t stop. “They asked all these questions about him and Lucy. About how well he knew her, as if Lucy was his girlfriend or something.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  Seriously. Lucy and Duane? “No. It’s ridiculous they would think that.” Maybe by now everyone was back home. Or at work. Duane at the creamery scooping Double Chocolate Chunk Cherry into waffle cones or the pink plastic dishes they had for little kids. Her father pushing papers at the insurance agency. Her mother cleaning or shopping or doing whatever it was she did all day.

  “Did they say why they wanted to talk to Duane?”

  “Because of Yoda.” She told Dr. Mallory about Lucy’s little toy and how the priest had found it in the chapel and that they knew Duane had been in the chapel that week and they wondered if he had been the one to drop the toy. “He told them he didn’t. But the thing is, he did have it. He lied to them. After they left, when he was freaking out”—an image flashed of Duane standing in the kitchen sucking down beer—“he told me he did have it. He said Lucy gave it to him.”

  “And do you think that is true?”

  “Why would Lucy give it to him? It was one of her favorite things.” She slipped her hand into the pocket of her shorts and tightened her fingers around the stone, the stone that signified she and Lucy had been chosen sisters. “I mean, she barely even talked to him.”

  “Did you ask him that, Rain?”

  “He said it was a secret.”

  “I see.”

  “Between him and Lucy. But I don’t know how he would have a secret with Lucy. I mean, they barely talked.”

  “And if they did have a secret, would it hurt to think Lucy might have a secret she didn’t tell you?”

  “Everyone has secrets,” she said in the same flat voice she had said everyone lies. That was what the policeman had said last October when Lucy disappeared.

  “And your friend Lucy had secrets?”

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, said nothing.

  “Secrets are curious things, Rain. There are secrets that are benign, even fun. Like surprise parties and gifts.”

  Rain thought to when she was little and she and Duane had saved up to buy their mother a bracelet for Christmas. And the party she and her mother had planned to surprise Duane when he was ten. I know I can trust you not to tell Duane, her mother had said. So he will be surprised.

  “Sweet secrets,” Mallory said. “Things you only tell your best friend about.” Lucy climbing into the front seat of Jared Phillips’s green Jeep.

  “Like boys you have a crush on,” Mallory continued.

  As if the little shrink knew the first thing about crushes. She probably didn’t even have a date when she was in high school. It remained a complete mystery to Rain why the tall, good-looking man she had seen in the photo in the shrink’s kitchen would have married her. And anyway, Lucy didn’t have a crush on Jared. He only wanted to ask her something. Don’t tell. Okay? Lucy had said. I don’t want my parents to worry. Because of Jared’s reputation. And that accident where a girl died. But he’s really a good person. A good person who made a bad mistake. That was Lucy. Seeing the best in everyone. And that was Lucy too. Not perfect. Even telling a fib to her parents so they wouldn’t know she was breaking her promise not to ride with Jared.

  “And then there are secrets that are not benign, that can make us ill or warp our history.”

  Rain thought about the razor taped to the underside of her bureau drawer. But Lucy’s secrets weren’t that kind. Lucy’s secrets were the ones she kept for other people. Like whatever it was Jared wanted to ask her the day she went with him. Or what Gabi Russell told her in the girls’ room. Secrets she wouldn’t even tell Rain.

  They’d just finished third-period geometry and only had study period before lunch. They always sat together in the library, sitting at the same table by the window overlooking the center courtyard. Rain hadn’t finished her take-home quiz for World Geography and was working on that when Lucy got up. “Be right back,” she whispered. “Got to go to the girls’ room.” Rain wouldn’t have thought anything about it, but as soon as Lucy left, Gabi Russell got up and followed her. Gabi was always trying to butt her way into whatever she and Lucy were doing, even though she was a grade ahead of them. Get your own friends, Rain always wanted to tell her. She returned her attention to the quiz, answered two more questions, waited for Lucy to return. She fiddled with her pen, flipped back in the text to find another answer, like it would ever matter in her entire life if she knew the leading crops of Ecuador. She shoved the quiz in her notebook and got permission to go to the bathroom. Mrs. Shepley was substituting for the regular school librarian, who would never have let them leave without grilling them first and then checking the clock every minute until they returned. She swung the door open, glanced around the empty room, and wa
s about to leave when she heard someone crying. She followed the sound to the last cubicle. Gabi saw her first and clammed right up.

  “Hi,” Lucy said, as if it were perfectly normal to hole up in a toilet stall with a sobbing girl.

  Later, at lunch she had asked Lucy, “What was that all about?”

  “What?”

  “Gabi. What was she crying about?”

  “Oh, some personal problem,” Lucy said.

  “Like what?”

  “I promised not to tell,” Lucy said.

  “Not even your best friend?” Rain teased.

  Lucy had changed the subject.

  In Dr. Mallory’s office, Rain looked at the clock on the top of the bookcase. By now Duane and her parents must be on their way home. And even if the police didn’t believe him about Lucy’s Yoda, they couldn’t prove anything.

  “Are you worried about Duane, Rain?”

  The fear that had been stirring beneath her ribs since the day before when the police arrived at their door to speak to Duane came out in a rush. “I’m afraid they might think he had something to do with what happened to Lucy.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” But she kept seeing Duane, standing in the kitchen, sucking down beer and saying too insistently, I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I would never do anything to hurt Lucy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Although I had only been gone three days, our house had the staleness of a place shuttered and unoccupied.