Lost Girls (48 page)

''Saw you comin','' she says, chuckling, as though this fact alone spoke for some ingenious accomplishment. ''Been around here quite a bit of late, haven't you, Mr. Crane?''

''Just stretching the legs.''

''Well, well.''

She waits, but I have no words for her, so she fills the space herself.

''You want some coffee? There's some just made.''

''That would be great.''

''Get yourself in out of the cold, then, and have a seat.''

The choice of seating is limited, though, given that there are only two in the entire room and one (an overstuffed recliner shawled in a threadbare Hudson's Bay blanket) is obviously Mrs. Arthurs's roost. Sling my overcoat over a wobbly side table (a Queen Elizabeth II glass paperweight atop a sun-yellowed notepad from the Banff Springs Hotel) and take my seat, a pine kitchen chair apparently designed for dwarfs with extremely good posture.

''Milk? Sugar?'' the old woman calls out from around the corner where there's the rattle of cups and saucers being lowered from the top shelf.

''Whatever's going.''

When Mrs. Arthurs returns she carries a tray bearing two fancy bone-china cups (both murky with drops of cream) and a plate of assorted store-bought biscuits.

''Nice of you to drop by. Don't get many visitors anymore,'' she says, placing the tray down upon a footstool and falling into her chair. ''Don't get
any
visitors anymore, to be honest.''

''Well, I'm not exactly just visiting, Mrs. Arthurs. I've come to ask you a favor, as a matter of fact.''

''I can't imagine what I could help
you
with, Mr. Crane.''

''It involves the case I'm working on. A rather unusual request, actually.''

Lifts her cup and makes a sound like a vacuum being dunked into a pail of water.

''Is this about what I was telling you before?'' she asks when she pulls the cup away from her lips.

''No. Not directly, anyway. What I'm here to ask you is to assist me in a matter of evidence.''

''Cookie?''

''Thank you, no.''

The old woman crunches on a slab of shortbread.

''What I've come here to tell you is that I am currently in possession of something that may be incriminating to my own client in this case,'' I say. ''I'd rather not tell you how I came about it, if it's all the same to you.''

A moth hammers against the kitchen window behind me, beats exhausted wings over the glass loud enough that I feel my voice rising to shut it out.

''I'm asking you to present this evidence to the Crown as though you've discovered it yourself.''

''To lie, you mean,'' she says, sliding the back of her hand over her mouth.

''I suppose. In a manner, yes. To lie.''

''What sort of evidence would you be talking about?''

I dig into the outside pocket of my overcoat and pull out the newspaper-wrapped hair, place it on the tray next to my cup, and give her a moment to look it over.

''Hair,'' I say.

''I can see that.''

''I have reason to believe that it's the hair of Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn. If its DNA matches the hair found in the back of Tripp's car, it proves that they're dead, and that they died in this lake.''

''Doesn't prove he did it.''

''No. But it sure doesn't help him.''

''And you want me to take this into town and say I found it somewhere?''

''Washed up on your beach.''

''So your man will be blamed.''

''So the interests of justice may be advanced. Perhaps we could think of it in those terms.''

''Perhaps we could.''

The old woman considers the round package without distaste, lips pursed. Then she raises her eyes, looks at me as though I, too, were some kind of inanimate forensic exhibit.

''Why not give it to them yourself ?''

''Technically speaking, from the point of view of a lawyer's ethical duty, that would be the right thing to do in situations of this kind. Hand the evidence over to the police and withdraw from the case. But I can't do that.''

''And why's that?''

''Because even with this''--I cast my eyes over to the hair--''there isn't enough evidence to convict him. So if I withdraw, all it would mean is that some other lawyer would be brought in to finish the trial and Tripp would walk. That's why I have to stay with him.''

''But if this hair of yours isn't enough to get your man, why have me give it to the police at all?''

''It might help me talk to him. Get through. It might be enough for him to see that it's over.''

I keep my eyes on her jaw, its mechanical circles and clacks still working the biscuity paste around her mouth.

''But you know that I think the Lady did it,'' she says after swallowing.

''I'm not saying she didn't, exactly. But even you said you thought Tripp probably had a hand in it one way or another.''

''And that's what you believe?''

''I'm not sure I believe anything.''

''Sounds to me like you do. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?''

I say nothing to this, and instead take a slurping gulp of coffee so hot, it instantly burns. Mrs. Arthurs watches me and rocks in her chair for a moment, its spring hee-hawing beneath her.

''So why me?'' she asks finally. ''There's plenty of others around here who'd like a turn at your man.''

''That's true. But I suppose I feel that you and I share something, Mrs. Arthurs.''

''Oh?''

''We both know the Lady is real.''

''How's that, then?''

''Just like you. I lost someone too.''

The rocking stops.

''That girl,'' she says. ''The one that drowned.''

The saucer lifting on its own to meet my cup with a crack of hollow bone.

''How do you know about that?''

''I
live
on this lake, Mr. Crane. And twenty years isn't so long ago when you get to be my age.''

Clear my throat to recover from the prickling rush of surprise. Surprise at the fact that this one wrinkled widow, this believer in a dead woman rising from frozen waters, this most senior of citizens who lives outside of census takers, daily newspapers, and group aerobic classes, this accidental hermit, may be the only person on the planet who knows who I am.

''Had a feeling it was you,'' she says, bringing a selfcongratulating index finger to the tip of her nose. ''That I'd seen you before. Although you'd only have been a wee fellow at the time. And they called you something else then.''

''Richard.''

''Same as your father.''

''Richard senior and Ricky junior. It was thought of as very cute at the time. Then all the aunties and uncles got together to suggest it might be a good idea for me to change it. After what happened.''

The old woman considers me long enough that I can feel the space my body occupies shrinking before her.

''The thinking was it might help save me from being hounded by the press as I got older,'' I hear myself saying. ''But the fact is the press was never really interested anyway. 'Girl Drowns While on Holiday'--it happens every week up here in the summers. But now I think I know why they really did it.''

''And why's that, then?''

''To help me forget.''

''Forgive me now, Mr. Crane. But you'd think a son should never have to feel ashamed to carry his own father's name.''

''He's not what I'm ashamed of, Mrs. Arthurs.''

She pulls herself soundlessly forward in her chair, the fading light from the kitchen window seeping through her hair pale as ash. Strokes a hand down the length of her neck and pulls the skin tight from her chin. For a moment her face becomes a hollow mask. Deep in their sockets, eyes belonging to a stranger behind it.

''They said you might have been the one,'' she says, bland and even. ''That you drowned the girl yourself.''

''And what do you think?''

''I'm asking you.''

The moth at the window again but softer now. For what might be a minute or two there's nothing but its last feathery swats against the glass, flipping like dealt cards on the sill.

''Her name was Caroline,'' I say, eyes fixed on a silver cobweb sprayed into the corner above her head. ''I think you would have to say we were in love. Or as much as kids can be in love. Kissin' cuzzins. But that day out in the canoe I tried to go further and I scared her.''

''An accident, then.''

''An accident. But accidents have causes.''

The old woman's hands lock together into a sleeping spider on her lap.

''I tried to save her,'' I go on as though asked to. ''Went down to pull her up but she was too heavy. Or I wasn't strong enough. Or something. And I remember it was
cold,
just a couple of strokes down from where the sun touched the surface. So cold, it got harder than water, like solid rock.''

All of Mrs. Arthurs enlarging now, pressed-in eyes brought closer to mine. Below them her fingers awaken to scuttle forward to the ends of her knees.

''I guess I must have panicked,'' I'm saying, the words delicate and moist as popped bubbles. ''Didn't think I had enough air to make it back up. That if I held on to her any longer she might take me down with her. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe I didn't even try. Not really. Maybe I just gave up.''

''Now--''

''I
looked back
. There was definitely enough time for that. If I was really about to drown would I have taken the second or two or three or however long it took to stop and open my eyes? No. But that's exactly why I did it. I looked because I
knew
there was enough time.''

''You were too young to remember all that. People forget the worst things, don't they, over time. Or make other things up in their place.''

''But I remember now. Caroline reaching her hands up to me close enough that I could feel them brush across the bottom of my feet. And her scream that let the water in. Knew I could have saved her even then and all I did was watch her go.''

''There's no--''

''I could have.''

''Really no need for--''

''I could have saved her.''

Holy Jesus then I'm in her arms. A blubber-faced child wiping my nose on her cardiganed shoulder that smells of bacon and almonds and bedpan. Everything inside me exploding off its hinges. A turning screw that rips up through organs and bone. For a moment. Then I'm pushing away, fingertips digging at my eyes, assembling myself with a pair of bruising gasps. If one were standing behind me it might have appeared only as an incoherent lunge forward that fell well short of an embrace. Nothing more than a momentary loss of balance on my part, legs fallen asleep from sitting too long on the edge of a too-small chair.

''God, I'm sorry.''

''Nothing to be sorry about.''

''I'm afraid you're wrong about that.''

Both of us turn our eyes to the dripping hair on the table. Watch it as though expecting it to move, and in the flickering light of the fire it almost does.

''Well, well, well,'' she says after a long while before another while passes in silence. Then, just as I'm convinced she's about to announce there's no way, she'll have nothing to do with dead little girls' hair, it would be wrong to pretend something that wasn't true before a court of law, she has no choice but to have me reported, she accepts.

''Just hand it over to the police in town, you say?''

''That's right. They'll take it from there.''

''Fine, then, Mr. Crane. Though I won't do it as a favor to you. I'll do it as a favor to the wee ones. For we couldn't leave the poor things' hair just sitting there, could we?''

''No, I don't think we could.''

She nods, and I down the still-scalding coffee in two gulps. When I place the cup back in its saucer on the table I notice that a small pool of green water has formed there from the slow but unstoppable drip that comes off the hair sticking out one end of the package.

I rise, unsteady as a marionette. But when I throw on my coat it's noticeably lighter on my shoulders. ''Incredibly sleepy all of a sudden,'' I say, startled by an instant yawn.

''Know the feeling. First sign of old age.''

Rattle at the door handle before the latch pulls back and it swings open. Long enough for Mrs. Arthurs to get up herself and place a dry hand against my cheek, knuckles the size of chestnuts rolled across sharp stubble.

''Did you see her, then? The Lady? Did you see her for yourself ?''

''I've seen her.''

''I knew you would. As soon as I laid eyes on you I knew you'd be one to understand.''

Turn to face her but the pale outdoor light has washed her away, an X ray exposing vague bones within a membrane of skin.

''I'm very sorry about your daughter, Mrs. Arthurs,'' I say, and collect her briefly at the shoulders. Careful, hesitant, the way you would lift a crystal bowl up into your arms. And she gives herself over to my grasp, empties her lungs in a surrendering sigh.