Darkness peering (16 page)

"You've got the same smile you had twenty years ago, y'know that, sweet
pea He winked at her. "Talk to Boomer."

"Boomerr" Her cell phone rang. "Excuse me." Static broke up most of
the words so that "... missing person ..." was the only thing she
heard.

IT

THE CASTILLOS LIVED ON PUMPKIN RUN ROAD IN ONE OF THE

town's nicest neighborhoods, oversized houses like symbols of potency
set back from the streets, backyard swimming pools surrounded by tall
cedar fences. The renovated Greek Revival stood on a half-acre
clearing and had the kind of sheen and upkeep that told you its
residents were well off enough to imagine they could buy peace of
mind.

Rachel knocked on the door and Dr. Yale Castillo answered. Yale was
the senior surgeon on call in the emergency room at Kerrins County
General Hospital. They'd spoken fairly often in the ER, exchanging
information about a carjacking or a stabbing. He was an old warrior
with an overly proud demeanor, his dyed black hair plastered
unflatteringly across his balding pate. He wore gold wire-rim glasses
and his mouth was a practiced slit from years of keeping his patients'
harrowing needs at arm's length.

"It could be nothing," were his first words to her, "but my oldest
daughter appears to be missing." His voice was raspy, but his eyes
betrayed not a hint of panic. "Please, come in."

Rachel's scalp prickled, the gravity of the situation impressing her in
a new and visceral way. Claire Castillo worked with Billy at Winfield
School for the Blind, and Billy had confessed he'd had a crush on her.
Rachel's and Claire's lives had crossed paths early on, but then Claire
was sent away to boarding school, a luxury Rachel's parents could ill
afford.

The family was gathered in the contemporary-style living room with its
gleaming beveled bronze mirrors, elm veneer in a light finish on the
doors and drawers, octagonal glass-topped end tables and Plexiglas-cube
lamps. Yale's wife sat on a long

white sectional couch, her slender hands fidgeting in her lap. She
had a slouchy, chestnut-colored hairdo and a stiff, prim posture. She
stood nervously when Rachel entered the room.

"Are you with the police?"

"Jackie, this is Detective Storrow," Yale said. "She's here to help
us."

She eyed Rachel skeptically. "She's so young."

"I've had four years on the force, Mrs. Castillo. Three as a patrol
officer and one as a detective, and I can assure you that I'm not all
that young."

Jackie's face was frozen in a pained smile. "We're worried about
Claire. She didn't show up for work this morning."

"Claire is a creature of habit," Yale interrupted. "She calls home
twice a week, rain or shine. Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings,
without fail, we get our phone call from Claire."

"Without fail." Jackie turned to her husband.

"But late last night, when we hadn't heard from her, Jackie phoned and
kept getting the machine. You have to understand, this is not like
Claire. So earlier this morning, I went over there to check on her
myself..."

"You have a key?"

"She gave us her spare."

"She rents an apartment on Fidelity Drive." Jackie's face was flushed.
"Something's definitely wrong, Officer."

"Detective," Yale corrected his wife. "We're a bit concerned. Claire's
twenty-nine years old, she's very responsible."

"Have you tried calling any of her friends?"

"Oh, yes. Nobody's heard from her since yesterday afternoon."

"She works at Winfield with your brother," Yale added.

"Yes, I know. I've met her. Let's have a seat and I'll take down some
information."

A pale, pretty teenager was seated in a corner of the living room, her
mouth a dot of resentment. Yale turned to her.

"Nicole?" he said. "Saw hello to Detective Storrow."

"Hi." Nicole gave a dismissive wave.

Rachel took a seat opposite Yale and his wife, now pressed together
like two hands in prayer on the sectional couch. "When a person goes
missing, we have to consider all the possibilities," she began, opening
her notebook. "Did she run away? Was she suicidal? Did she owe
anybody money?"

"No, no. Certainly not." Jackie shook her head.

"No to suicide," Yale said. "No to running away. The girls know they
can always come to me if they need money."

"Okay," Rachel said, removing her coat in the stuffy heat of the house.
"I'll need a list of acquaintances and friends, bank accounts,
hobbies"

"When the girls were little," Jackie said softly, "I'd let Claire
baby-sit. I knew she wouldn't open the door to strangers."

Nicole Castillo shifted on her leather wing chair and frowned.

"Any history of depression?" Rachel asked. "Was she on medication?"

"Just an inhaler for her asthma, when she needed it."

"Claire's a born optimist," Jackie said. Poised and brittle, she was
having a hard time keeping it all together, and her hovering husband
and distanced daughter seemed very aware of this fact. "I doubt she
had an enemy in the world."

"She did have a habit," Yale said, taking Jackie's hand and pressing it
firmly between his, "of frequenting a certain diner every Wednesday
night ... what's it called?" He turned to his wife. "The Homebaked
Halfbaked ... ?"

"The Hurryback Cafe."

"That's it. Located downtown.

Rachel knew the place, a vegetarian restaurant on Main Street, and
jotted the name in her notebook.

"She called it her The time,"" Jackie said. "She'd eat dinner, maybe
do some shopping. Claire enjoys spending time by herself, whereas me
I'd go stark raving mad. I like having lots of people around."

"Claire's very independent," Yale said proudly.

"Stubborn," Jackie agreed, "like her father."

"Pigheaded like her old man." He nodded.

"I'll need a picture," Rachel said, and nervous smiles fought through
the fear on their faces.

Back in her '91 Isuzu Impulse, Rachel phoned Billy at school. It took
a while for the receptionist to track him down. "Billy? she said, and
the line started breaking up. "Billy, it's me. You work with Claire
Castillo, don't you?"

"She hasn't shown up yet," he said. "It's kind of chaotic here."

"Her parents think she's missing."

"What?" He sounded genuinely alarmed.

"They think she's missing. She's not in her apartment and she keeps in
pretty close touch." "Jeez..."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday after school. We had a cup of coffee in the cafeteria, then
I had to go pick up Porter."

"Who?"

"You know ... my head-injured kid. I'm his volunteer. We hang out
together Wednesday nights." :

"Billy," she said, "do you think something could've happened to her?"

"What?"

The line was breaking up. "Do you have any idea what *

might've happened to her?" I

"No," he said, and she sensed him getting defensive. "I have no idea
where she is, Rachel. I just hope she's okay. We were gonna get
together tonight and do something. Jesus ..."

"Billy? You're breaking up ..."

"Call and let me know, okay?"

"What?"

"Call me and let--" The line went dead.

Flowering Dogwood straddled a bend in the Androscoggin River on the
edge of the White Mountains, nestled deep in the glaciated valley of
Maine's northern wilderness. Eighty percent of the state was covered
with pine and hardwood and tamarack, the all-encroaching forest
interrupted by occasional marshy fens and rolling hills of fields and
pastures. In the distance, the mountains with their white landslide
scars spiked the horizon.

Rachel pulled into an asphalt parking lot behind Claire's brick and
granite apartment building on Fidelity Drive. Inside, the landlord met
her in the wide vestibule and they rode a creaking elevator up to the
fourth floor. She had called him from her car and he had offered his
full cooperation. Fred Lake's gray hair was scraggly and long, like a
wrestler's, and his myopic gaze made her uneasy.

"So Claire's missing?" he asked pointedly.

"We're still investigating."

"She's got the best unit. Top floor. Nobody over you playing fucking
Mexican marimba music. Great view. Cross-ventilation." He opened the
elevator doors. "Her dad's a doctor. Rich guy. You can't tell me she
makes that kind of dough working with the gin ks

"The what?"

"You know. Moles. Bats."

Rachel's voice grew cold. "Thanks, I'll take it from here."

"Lemme get the door." She noticed his limp as he walked down the
hallway in front of her. He fiddled with the keys, then unlocked the
door to Apartment 402. "Here you go."

The first thing Rachel noticed when she entered the apartment was that
the lights were off and the windows were shut. The place was a
colorful mess, the home of a woman too busy and involved with life to
bother with anything as trivial as housework. The large, comfortable
furniture in the living room was buried beneath a snowfall of unfolded
laundry, last week's newspapers, abandoned books, forgotten plates
dotted with crumbs, glasses that left rings

on the varnished end tables. The kitchenette was painted a sunny
yellow, nasturtiums basking on the windowsill above a sink full of
dirty dishes. The dishwater was cold. There was nothing in or on the
stove, no plate of food left out, no half-smoked cigarette left in an
ashtray that might indicate she'd been interrupted in the middle of
something here in the apartment.

"You know, she had this visitor lately," the landlord said, "some guy,
tall fellow, brown hair ... kind of pie-eyed."

"What?"

"Pie-eyed, you know ... he followed her around like a puppy dog."

"Thanks," Rachel said. "I can handle it from here."

His face grew resentful. He rattled his keys and brushed rudely past
her on his way out.

The bathroom was mildewed, half a dozen towels draped carelessly over
the shower curtain rod. The bedroom walls were festooned with art
prints--van Gogh, Miro, Frida Kahlo. Rachel rummaged through the
closet, lots of dresses and skirts, a pair of funny-looking khaki
trousers with short silver zippers over each pocket and vertically down
each cuff, a dry cleaning bag with a white blouse inside. Shoes and
sneakers in a jumble at the bottom, scarves dangling from the shelf
above, a black fedora plunked over a terry cloth bathrobe hanging from
a large wire hook on the door. Aside from the clutter Jackie Castillo
had already warned her about, nothing seemed amiss.

Still, Rachel was getting a bad feeling about this.

She moved to a rolltop desk made of some fine grain of wood and picked
up a black leather organizer from the navy ink blotter. Names,
addresses and phone numbers filled its back pages. She thumbed through
the calendar section, random initials written inside the little
squares: "GL ... s ... HE ... cd ..." A shorthand diary?

Rachel flipped to last night--Wednesday, October 14th--and found
several letters etched inside the calendar square, one

predominant among them: "b." She felt an extended shiver run down her
spine, "b" for Billy?

Billy had mentioned he and Claire were supposed to get together
tonight, Thursday night. Inside Thursday's square, she found the
notation "B @ 7." A chill came over Rachel. It seemed obvious that
this "B" stood for Billy, but had Claire seen Billy yesterday, as well?
Or last night, Wednesday night, the night she disappeared? Did the "b"
stand for Billy? If so, why the lowercase?

She glanced at the desk's cluttered cubbyholes, eyes drawn to a thick
stack of red envelopes. She slid out the packet of envelopes, some of
which were still sealed, and opened the letter on top. "... I will
slit your throat ..." She could feel the heat of her own body as she
flipped through page after page of threats and irrational accusations
written in shaky block letters. "... I will strangle you in your sleep
you ruined my life ... don't deny it, you bitch, I know what you did
... you loosened the stitches on all my clothes while I was asleep I
KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE! DO NOT DENY it!" The letters were unsigned,
with no return address, and postmarked Bangor, Maine.

She jumped when her cell phone rang.

"We found something." It was McKissack. "I think you should come take
a look."

FLOWERING DOGWOOD WAS LAID OUT ON A GRID PATTERN. IT

had one movie theater and over a dozen churches. There were eight
bars, including the Peaked Hills and Eleazor's Gutter, and its two main
commercial streets, Delongpre and Main, intersected at the downtown
business district. There were two parks and a shopping mall built in
the 1970s, and the town itself was surrounded on

all sides by forest, a vast wild growth. Every street ended in woods,
except to the west where the interstate and dairy farms began; then you
got a checkerboard of pastureland and a fast way out of town.

Several police officers were down on their hands and knees, crawling
around on the asphalt of the public parking lot behind Sears on Main
Street. McKissack greeted Rachel as she pulled up to the yellow police
tape.

"Claire Castillo's car," he said, pointing.

A shiny red Nissan Sentra was parked in the northwest corner of the lot
where the forest grew right up to the concrete. Rachel glanced around.
The nearest streetlight was about fifty feet away. There had been a
heavy ground fog last night, she recalled, the air pregnant with the
promise of rain.

"This feels funny to me," McKissack said, refusing to meet her gaze.
He always did this to her after one of their encounters, became coldly
professional in order to mask his guilt. He acted as if they barely
knew one another, and she deeply resented his hypocrisy.