Lost Girls (28 page)

''But don't just take my word for it. There's going to be plenty of evidence to support the Crown's claim that these girls were brought to their ends by the man who sits at the table next to me. To show that what happened was this: On Thursday, May the twelfth, Ashley and Krystal went to Tripp's classroom after school as usual to attend a meeting of the Literary Club, of which they were the only members and Tripp their sole supervisor. At the closing of their meeting he offered to drive them both home in his car, and they accepted. But this wasn't unusual; he drove them home after school quite a lot, actually--him up front and the girls in the back. In fact, they sat in the backseat so much, they both left strands of their hair on the upholstery.

''So it is on this Thursday in early spring that Tripp decided not to drive the girls home, but take them out to Lake St. Christopher. The end of the road. Gets out the driver's side, opens the back door where the girls sit wondering what they're doing out there when their parents would be worrying about them and their dinners getting cold. Then Tripp grabs them. There's a struggle. One of the results of this struggle is that Krystal is cut, dripping blood on the backseat. How do we know this? Because she was blond and Ashley was dark haired. Because both blond and dark hair were found in the backseat, and both were sent for DNA testing along with the bloodstains. Because the blond hair and bloodstains
matched
.

''And now Tripp is dragging the girls off into the woods down toward the lake. But with their attempts to fight him off and all the spring meltwater flowing down the hill--well, you can imagine that it would be quite a muddy business. So muddy, in fact, that the pants and shoes Tripp wore that day were later found caked with it. But despite the girls' struggles and the slippery path he finally manages to get them down to the water's edge where he--well--what
did
he do? Only the accused who sits there before you knows for sure. But Lake St. Christopher is wide and one of the deepest bodies of water in the region. Deep enough to have something put down in it never come back up again, even with all the technology in the world.

''We've come to the end of the story and we're still left with the question that any right-thinking person must ask.
Why?
Members of the jury, nobody can know for sure what goes on in the mind of a killer, but the answer may just lie in those numbers I mentioned earlier. Maybe he did it out of love. Not the love you feel for your husband or wife or kids or friends. But a perversion of love that's been twisted by a very sick mind. Think about this: Tripp kept pictures of girls cut out from catalogs pasted to the wall in his bedroom. Girls the same age as his victims. Girls modeling underwear.

''Members of the jury, that's our story of what happened and why. Over the course of this trial you will see and hear evidence to substantiate this story. But even more important than the evidence is making a difference. It's giving some peace to the dead
and
to the missing.''

Goodwin collapses back into his chair and takes half a dozen noisy gasps for air. I have to hand it to him: he made it through the whole of his opening submissions without physical disaster. But it's still early yet. And now it's my turn.

''Mr. Crane?'' The bench nods, and with a humble thank-you, I rise.

''Those are undoubtedly some very disturbing statistics Mr. Goodwin cited for you all just now,'' I start, trying to keep things slow, half drawled. ''I make my living in this business, and I can tell you that I'm
still
shocked whenever I hear them. Shocked, yes, but I have no doubt that they're true. Because we live in a terrible world. That's quite a thing to say, isn't it? But we
know
it's true. You can hardly turn on the local news these days without hearing about children gone missing--most often girls, isn't it?--and even though the police and the volunteer search parties are doing everything they can, you know if it's made it on TV it can't be good.

''No, you won't find me agreeing with Mr. Goodwin very much over the days and weeks to come, but I certainly agree with him that it's a terrible world with enough terrible things in it to give anyone a million lifetimes worth of nightmares. I have those nightmares myself. In fact, I've been having more than my fair share since I started working on this case. And not because I have any misgivings about defending my client, Mr. Thomas Tripp. No. It's because two young girls have been lost and so far they haven't been found. But all we can do, friends--all
anyone
can do--is be good citizens, be vigilant, and do our jobs well.

''And as for our jobs, let's summarize what we've heard so far from the Crown. Mr. Goodwin wants us all to think that this trial is really about assigning blame to someone for something bad that we suspect has happened. Sounds okay, right? But there are some serious problems here. First, a criminal trial is
not
about assigning blame but testing the sufficiency of the Crown's evidence. I know that doesn't sound as good, but that's our job here nevertheless. Second, while we all
suspect
something horrible has happened to Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn, we don't have any idea
what
actually happened. We know they're not
here,
but couldn't they just as easily have run away? Hitched a ride somewhere and months from now there'll be a voice on the phone asking for money or a ticket home. I'm not saying this is necessarily so in this case, and the defense is not relying on this hypothesis in any event. All I'm asking is that you keep this possibility in mind, ladies and gentlemen.

''But let's do the Crown a favor for the moment and take a closer look at their take on things. Mr. Goodwin told you about muddy pants and bloodstains, but--
hoo boy!
--there sure were a lot of holes in his tale, weren't there? Members of the jury, convictions of those accused of firstdegree murder cannot be based on suspicions alone. And in this case this is all the Crown has. Well, maybe not
all
. They've got some circumstantial curiosities and crossed fingers--but not a single piece of direct evidence relating Thom Tripp to the disappearance of Krystal and Ashley.

''Now, I want to make it clear to the court that I use the girls' first names because, after the extensive research I've put into the preparation of this case, it
feels
like I know them. I've even met their fathers and conducted friendly interviews with them both, and as you can appreciate, such interviews are unusual indications of shared interests between parties in our respective positions. And I think it's because there
are
shared interests here. An interest in mourning the disappearance of two children from the community. An interest in having the Crown present its evidence before an impartial jury. And, most essentially, an interest in seeing justice done.

''
Seeing justice done
. Now, that's a phrase we hear a lot, isn't it? But what does it really mean? It's tempting to let our search for justice slip into a hunger for vengeance. But you
must
resist this temptation. Because seeing justice done isn't about having somebody who doesn't have the right look about them put away because we've got a hunch that they've been up to no good. No. It's about determining the guilt or innocence of this
one
man in this
one
case on the
one
set of evidence tabled at the end of the day. It's a hard job. Nobody's denying it. But for the next while, it's your job. And so it is with respect I ask you, members of the jury, not to merely see that something's done to somebody. See that justice is done.''

I sit. Not bad. Ripped a few pages from the Graham Lyle Opening Submissions Handbook, but enough of my own thrown in to be proud of. Visible nods of agreement from the jury, and even the press keep their mouths and laptops shut in the gallery behind me. Justice Goldfarb herself offers an audible sniff of congratulations before starting in with her instructions to the jury about not talking to a soul with regard to what you heard today or will come to hear over the course of the trial, et cetera, et cetera.

I should be pleased, but instead I feel the bubble and pitch of rising nausea. Everything inside made tight. I try to shake it by looking over at my client for whom I've just done a more than adequate job, but the sight of Tripp's drooping face just makes it worse.

An unwelcome feeling. But one so strong and unrelenting that for the time I have to wait before it passes I can't help but think there must be something in it.

Someone entering the hotel and climbing the stairs toward my room. I don't hear this although I'm still certain, like knowing you're being watched while sitting alone in your room. And now it occurs to me that maybe I've been alone in the upper floors of the Empire Hotel too long altogether. I've come to know all of its yawnings and groans to the point that there is now an unsettled intimacy between us. This is why I feel the footsteps on the stairs before I hear them, deliberate and hollow. Sharp knuckles through the wood.

I don't ask who's there, don't look around for something heavy or sharp just in case. Instead I go to the door without thinking and pull back the bolt.

''Hey, Mr. Crane.''

Eyes open to a soggy Laird Johanssen, the three-quarter-length sleeves of his Meat Loaf T-shirt dripping Murdoch rain down to his fingertips. It's the
Bat Out of
Hell
album cover with a demon biker blasting out of his grave riding a flaming Harley.

''Laird,'' I sigh, and realize that I'd been holding my breath. ''How did you know this was my room?''

''Guy downstairs,'' he says, shaking back the jellied cables of his hair. ''Told him I was your associate.''

I stand back to let him in and immediately Laird's presence in the room feels absurd. Nobody else has been in here the whole time of my stay and now that I have a visitor it's the doughnut-shop kid with the glasses permanently stalled at the pimply precipice of his nose. I walk back to the desk and sit down but for a moment Laird remains fixed just inside the door. Looks around at the pages of
The Murdoch Phoenix
on the walls, his head slipping into a slow nod.

''Ve-ry
in
-teresting,'' he says in a German-psychiatrist voice.

''Well, it's a pleasure to see you again, too, Laird, but what can I do for you?''

''Actually, it's more like what I can do for you.''

He moves over to the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress that barks loudly at having to bear his sudden weight. Then he pulls his arms out of the straps of his backpack and zips it open, a vicious grin playing over his lips.

''Forgot to give you something the other day,'' he says, and pulls out a pink folder, waves it in front of his face as though fanning himself.

''What is it?''

''What do you think?''

The grin, now less vicious than merely lopsided, stitched onto his mouth as though by some botched surgical procedure.

''I can't guess, Laird.''

''I liberated it after word got out at school that Ashley and Krystal had gone missing. It was only a matter of time before Principal Warren would come down with the pliers to break open their lockers and hand everything over to the pigs. So I beat her to it, and managed to preserve this little beauty.''

He waves the folder again, and I resist the urge to jump up from my chair, snatch it from his hands, and smack him across the face with it.

''How'd you get into their lockers without breaking them open yourself?'' I ask instead.

''Well,
one
way was to know their combinations.'' He says ''combinations'' in four distinct syllables as though speaking to a child.

''They told you?''

''Fuck no, man. I just
knew
.''

''And you took whatever it is you have there for yourself.''

''That would be the picture.''

His mouth gaping at me in what flips between mirth and the masking of chronic pain. But then I think: That's what being a teenager
is,
isn't it? Trying to have a good old giggle while seriously wondering if things might be better if you were dead, or maybe made someone else dead. Youth as a carousel of mirth and pain, over and over and all at once. Usually you only see it for what it is after you've graduated into the shady protections of adulthood and can look back with the wish to do it all over again, except this time in the name of vengeance. But Laird seems to understand all this even as he lives it. Maybe this kid is a little too smart for Murdoch, too gifted for the gifted program. Or maybe he's only exactly as he appears: a weird little fucker who's decided to translate his unpopularity and useless froth of hormones into the kind of superiority found only in the true voyeur. Laird wants to believe there's been a role for him in all of this, in the lives of Krystal and Ashley and all the other hot girls. And now he wants to believe he has a role for me too.

''You're a smart guy, aren't you, Laird?''

''I didn't bring my report card along with me, but yes. I'd say so.''

''You sure seem to know a lot about Krystal and Ashley, anyway.''

''Work, work, work.''

''Did you know
everything
about them?''

''Not everything.''

''What color were their eyes?''

''Blue. Both.''

''How much did they weigh?''