Bad News

by Amy Cross

  Looking at the screen, I see close-up photos of tiny yellow-red strands attached to sections of skin.

  “That seems remarkably sloppy,” I point out.

  “They were barely visible to the naked eye.”

  “But the killer must have known that the body would be examined,” I continue. “Is it possible that these threads are designed to lead us in the wrong direction?”

  “I'm considering all the possibilities right now.”

  “Something's still bugging me about the way those body parts were found,” I tell him. “Why offer us these clues now? Sure, it could be someone who just wants to toy with the police, but I'm not buying that. Why wait all this time?” I stare at the screen for a moment. “This doesn't fit with any TV movie I've ever watched.”

  ***

  “Esmee was such a good girl,” Amanda Waters says later in the evening, as we sit in the family's front room. She dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “She even used to ask for extra work at school, to bring home and do in the evenings.”

  “That makes her sound weird, but she wasn't,” Mark Waters adds. “She was just... scholarly. She was never happy if she didn't have her nose in a book.”

  I adjust my position on the couch, while carefully opening my jacket a little to make sure that the recorder can pick up all the voices.

  “She'd be twenty-six now,” Amanda says. “She'd be making decisions about her future. She always said she wanted to be a librarian. That's how much she loved books. Sometimes I even buy her a new book, when I see that one's come out by an author she loved. I keep thinking that maybe one day she'll come back and she'll get to read them all.”

  “Why are you really here?” Mark asks. “I don't buy that this is just a casual check-up. Has something happened in the case?”

  “As I explained,” Malone replies, “we're investigating the disappearance of a girl named Kimmy -”

  “I get that,” Mark says, cutting him off, “but Kimmy Duchette disappeared a year ago. What has specifically happened now to make you come here?”

  I glance at Malone. If I were in the Waters' shoes, I wouldn't believe for one second that this visit is a 'casual check-up'. My mind would be racing with all the terrible possibilities, and I'd be half-convinced that a body had been found.

  “I know you've been asked these questions before,” Malone says after a moment, “but in the days and weeks leading up to Esmee's disappearance, did her behavior change at all? Was there anything to indicate that maybe she'd become friends with someone new?”

  “She didn't have many friends,” Amanda replies. “Apart from her books.”

  “And she wouldn't have run off with anyone,” Mark explains. “Someone took her.”

  “You're not with the police, are you?” Amanda asks, suddenly turning to me. “Who are you? And why are you here?”

  “I'm... working with Sheriff Malone,” I say cautiously, still very keen to avoid mentioning my profession. “I'm an adviser.”

  I wait, but she's eyeing me with suspicion.

  “We know she's not coming back,” Mark Waters says suddenly. “We're not idiots. Girls like Esmee don't vanish and then come back years later.”

  “She will!” Amanda hisses.

  “People don't abduct girls and look after them,” Mark continues. “We just want to be able to give her a proper burial. We want her to have some dignity. She should have a proper grave with a proper -”

  Before he can finish, his wife gets to her feet and hurries out of the room, and a moment later I realize I can hear her sobbing somewhere far off in the house.

  “She knows too,” Mark says. “You have to understand, we just want to be able to bury Esmee. We're not expecting a miracle. We just want to know that, in the end, we found her and gave her a proper place to rest. Until that happens, we're always living in a kind of limbo.”

  He falls silent for a moment.

  “Did Esmee know that she was adopted?” I ask finally.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Mark replies.

  “I just wondered whether there was any tension,” I continue. “Some people don't react well to learning something like that.”

  “Esmee knew from an early age,” he explains, and he sounds a little irritated by the question. “Trust me, we managed the situation. It wasn't easy, but we sorted it all out. Now, if you don't mind, I feel like we're going around in circles, and your visit still doesn't make sense. Has there been a development, or not?”

  I glance at Malone, and I can see that he's reluctant to tell the truth. At the same time, even a complete fool would be able to see right now that he's holding something back.

  “We found the remains of Kimmy Duchette,” he says finally, and I think there might be the first hint of tears in his eyes. “Out in the forest.”

  Mark Waters stares at him for a moment, before looking down at his own hands.

  Over by the doorway, there's a startled gasp, and I look over just in time to realize that Amanda Waters must be out there somewhere. From the sounds I'm hearing now, it's pretty clear that she's breaking down.

  “I need to stress,” Malone continues, “that we have nothing to link Kimmy's disappearance to the disappearance of your daughter. Absolutely nothing.”

  “But you think there's a link,” Mark Waters says firmly, as his hands start shaking. “Everyone does. Everyone knows. We're not idiots.”

  “We have to consider the possibility.”

  I wait for a moment, and then I get to my feet and hurry out into the hallway, where I find Amanda Waters crumpled on the floor. She's sobbing wildly, while covering her face with her hands, so I kneel next to her and try to think of something I can do or say to make any of this better.

  Before I have a chance, however, she turns to me and puts her arms around me, and she clings tight to my shoulders as she continues to cry. After just a few seconds, I already start to feel her tears through the material of my shirt.

  “We should know more once the full forensic report is in,” Malone is saying in the other room. “That'll be tonight, and then we'll know how best to proceed.”

  “How was Kimmy when you found her?” Mark asks. “Was she buried in the forest?”

  “I'm sorry,” Malone replies, “but I'm not at liberty to go into those details right now. But I want to emphasize that this really might not be connected in any way to Esmee's disappearance. There's still hope.”

  “After eleven years?” Mark says. “Do you think I'm an idiot? That's just not possible. Whatever happened to that Duchette girl, it's the same thing that happened to Esmee. The only difference is that you haven't found Esmee yet. And maybe you never will.”

  “It's okay,” I tell Amanda as she starts sobbing again. I know these words are empty, that they're not helping at all, but I have to try. “You can't give up, not yet. You have to keep hoping.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sitting in the bar, staring down at the two ice creams that I've ordered, I can't help but think about the discovery of Kimmy's body. Whenever I close my eyes, I see those little chunks of meat in their little plastic bags. Even when my eyes are open, it's as if ghosts of those images are dancing in front of me, refusing to let me go.

  I check my watch.

  22:15.

  It's over two hours since Malone dropped me off here. He said he'd be quick, but that he had to go and speak to Mrs. Duchette personally. I offered to go with him, but he insisted that this time he needed to be alone. I said I could just wait in the car, but again he insisted that this was his job. I knew better than to argue with him, so I told him I'd meet him in here. I bought these ice creams, but I wasn't really thinking straight. Now they've mostly melted, and anyway I've realized that no-one wants to eat at a time like this.

  I check my watch again.

  Still 22:15.

  Man, time seems to be moving slowly.

  The clock ticks over to 22:16.

  I guess that's some kind of progress.

>   Spotting movement in the distance, I look out the window and see that a vehicle is crawling into the parking lot. But it's not Malone, and I'm starting to think that he's not coming. Which means that maybe his meeting with Mrs. Duchette didn't go so well.

  Grabbing my notebook, I start to jot down a few more ideas. That encounter with Mark and Amanda Waters was gold, from a journalistic point of view. Taking out my digital recorder, I begin to play the entire conversation back. I should be transcribing it all and figuring out which parts to use in my story, but after a moment I stop the playback and I sigh.

  This doesn't feel good.

  Those people are in shock, they're caught between grief and hope, and here I am getting ready to exploit them. I stare at the recorder for a moment, and then I bring up the menu and I prepare to delete everything. I hesitate, telling myself that maybe I'm being melodramatic, but then I realize that there's a danger I might relent and use the recording later. I take a deep breath, then, and finally I delete the file.

  I guess I can't be like Rolinda Derringham after all.

  ***

  “Hey,” I say as the door to his motel room opens, “I just -”

  Stopping suddenly, I see that he has a black eye.

  “Okay,” I continue cautiously, “that... doesn't look good.”

  “Can we just talk in the morning?” he asks.

  “What happened?”

  “I just told a woman that her daughter is dead,” he replies. “You'll be surprised to hear that she didn't take the news particularly well.”

  “She hit you?”

  “She might have had a point.”

  “But she hit you?”

  “Only at the end,” he explains. “She sat there and listened, and listened, and listened, until I ran out of things to tell her. And at the end, when I said that I'd be back in the morning, she just... exploded.”

  “Wow,” I reply. “Was it hard to fight her off?”

  I wait, but he seems particularly uncomfortable right now.

  “You did fight her off, right?” I continue. “Please, tell me you didn't just stand there and take it?”

  “I need to get some sleep,” he replies. “Maggie, no offense, but can we finish this conversation in the morning? Today has been one hell of a day, and I just want to get it over with and start over. In the morning, everything will seem clearer.”

  “There'll be reporters,” I warn him. “Once news about Kimmy gets out -”

  “I know.”

  “You'll need a strategy for dealing with them.”

  “I know.”

  “You'll also need -”

  “My strategy for dealing with you didn't work out so well,” he adds. “Did it?”

  “I wouldn't say that.”

  “You're still here, aren't you?” he continues, before taking a step back. “Thanks for your attempts to help, Maggie, but I really don't think there's anything more to be gained from this. I'm sure you've got a long drive ahead of you, to get home. I'll be busy all morning, so I won't be around to say goodbye. But thanks again. I wish you all the best.”

  “Wait,” I stammer, “I -”

  “You're a reporter, Maggie.”

  “So?”

  “So do you really think that I don't know why you're here?” he continues, as his anger begins to rise once again. “Do you really think that I was fooled by all that bullshit about wanting to help? I had you pegged from the moment you walked through the door, I knew exactly why you came back. You're a vulture, like all the rest. You've got this pathetic desperation for a story, it's in your eyes like a kind of hunger!”

  “If you thought that,” I reply, my voice trembling with shock and anger, “why did you let me help out?”

  “I thought that maybe I could use you!” he snaps. “I thought that maybe you'd actually come up with some leads, and that I could manage you and prevent you from causing too much damage. Because that's all you do, isn't it? People like you, you use everyone else in your rush to get a story. I figured I could turn the tables and maybe get some help for the case, but you didn't help at all. You're not even a good reporter.”

  “That's not fair!” I say firmly.

  “So you're telling me you didn't record the conversation at the Waters house?”

  I open my mouth to deny everything, but at the last moment the words catch in my throat.

  “Let me explain,” I say after a few seconds, “I -”

  “Save it,” he replies, “I don't need to hear it. Our little alliance is over, Ms. Carter. I'm sorry you weren't able to help, but I'm sure you got something out of it. You'll find a story to sell somehow.”

  And then, before I have a chance to say anything in response, he swings the door shut and leaves me standing all alone out here.

  “Piece of...”

  I pause, and then I reach out to knock again on the door, and then finally I just about manage to restrain myself.

  Taking the key from my pocket, I let myself into my own room and then I stop next to the bed. I'm fuming, and after a moment I turn and look at the wall that's dividing our two rooms, and I imagine Malone sitting in there feeling all sorry for himself. I want to go in there and defend myself, and tell him that I already deleted the recording of Esmee Waters' parents, but I doubt he'd listen. And, to be fair, he wasn't entirely wrong about my motives. I just wish he'd let me explain.

  “Thanks again, my ass!” I snap finally. “You don't get to order me away like I'm some kind of puppy!”

  Feeling completely furious, and still struggling to keep from going back out there and giving him a piece of my mind, I instead go over to the desk and open my laptop. Maybe Malone's had the wind knocked out of him, but I refuse to just give up, so I bring up all my notes and start reading through them again. There has to be something in here that'll give me a clue, something that'll point me in the right direction. If I have to uncover the truth by myself and present it to Malone on a silver platter, then so be it.

  I don't give up.

  Not ever.

  I scroll down the notes, but to be honest I find after a short while that I already know these facts word for word. I read each section two or three times, hoping that I'll notice something, but my eyes are starting to burn with tiredness and finally I feel as if I'm going to throw up. I start skimming through the parts of the story that I've written so far, and then I select every last word and hit the delete button. Then I save the changes and close the file, and I sit back as I realize that I've destroyed all the work I've done since I got back to Ridge Falls. And yet I still feel like a bad person.

  I can't sleep, but I'm going to go crazy if I stay bottled up in this little room.

  And that's when I realize that there's one person I really need to see right now.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It's late by the time I reach the entrance to Thomas Roper's farm. The lights are on, burning through the night air, but I stop for a moment and sit all alone in my car. Roper has every reason to hate me, and I feel as if I have no right to go and bother him again. I should just turn around and leave, and live with the damage I caused.

  But isn't that what people like me have always done? Just walk away, without facing up to things?

  ***

  “I really didn't think you'd want to talk to me,” I say a few minutes later, as I step through the open door and watch Roper heading to the kitchen. “I almost didn't come.”

  I wait for a reply.

  “That's a nasty black eye you've got,” I continue. “If it makes you feel any better, Malone ended up with one too. You guys kind of match right now. I'm pretty sure that's a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.”

  He stops at the counter and sets a water-boiler onto the stove. He hasn't actually said anything since he opened the door, but obviously he's at least willing to hear me out. Unfortunately, I was so convinced that he'd turn me away, I didn't really come up with anything much to say.

  “So I guess I reverted to my instincts
,” I tell him finally. “It's no excuse, but I was doing that job for a long time, and I guess part of it kinda... stained me. Does that make sense? It sank in so deep, I didn't even know it was there. And it's still there, even now, and I'm fighting it. And the worst thing is, I'm not even very good at it. Can you believe that? I held back for so many years, and eventually I decided to be like that dumbass Rolinda Derringham. And I failed.”

  He sets two mugs on the side.

  I guess that's a positive sign.

  “They're gone now,” I continue. “The police, I mean. And there were a few reporters this morning, but they've drifted off as well. I wish I could tell you that they'll apologize, that they've realized they were wrong. The truth is, they left because the story here is over. There are no more bones to pick. Sorry, bad analogy, but you get the idea. They moved through Ridge Falls and took everything they wanted, and now they're gone.”

  I wait.

  He watches the water-boiler for a moment.

  “Where?” he asks finally.

  “I beg your -”

  “Where have they moved on to?” he asks.

  “I have no idea, but -”

  “But it'll be someone like me,” he adds, cutting me off again as he glances toward me. “Some place like this. They'll just do it again and again and again, ripping up people's lives for -”

  “For news,” I counter.

  “For money!” he snaps, suddenly pounding a fist against the table. “They're just a business! They take lives and they package them up and they sell them to the public, surrounded by ads on news channels! There's no higher calling here! They're just scavengers, treating ordinary lives like they're scrap in a junkyard. That's how they see people like me. As human scrap. And for a while, I was worth re-using for their TV show. That's all it is, it's reality TV, and they get away with it because they claim that it's news!”

  I open my mouth to disagree with him, but then no words come out. To be honest, I think maybe he's right. No, I know he's right. It just took me a while to admit all of this to myself.