Lost Girls (50 page)

''It was the Lady.''

''You saw her?''

''She told me things.''

''Like what?''

''Like she has them now. And that's why they'll never be found.''

''That's not good enough, Thom.''

''What do you want, then?''

''For you to tell me that you killed Ashley Flynn and Krystal McConnell. Because you did and you know it, even if you thought some dead lady was giving you directions from the Great Fucking Beyond.''

Cocks his head to the side and in a second the glimpse of fear drains away from his face. Half nods as though the most clever little joke has just been delivered to his ear.

''What'd you do?'' he says.

''There's no me
in
this. Do I have to explain again that this--''

''Who did you hurt?'' His breath blown cold across the hot room. ''Tell me her name.''

For a moment I see myself sitting here in the instant chill of Interview Room No. 1 and feel certain that this is how I will stay forever. Thinking her name and willing it to my lips but nothing ever coming out. That this is how it ends, me and Tripp caught in each other's stares, perspiring and shadowless. We're to be roommates together in the eternity of names.

But as it turns out it doesn't end this way at all. Instead I'm a rubber band shot across the room, tumbling up into the air with all my limbs loose and grasping and quick. Then the more specific details begin to arrive: I'm throwing myself over the table at Tripp. Grabbing him by the collar of his prison overalls, his hair, the hanging lobes of his ears, wrenching him out of his chair to the floor. He doesn't have a chance. Didn't even see it coming. But then again, neither did I. Had no idea I was about to sit on my client's chest, set my knees on his shoulders, and start swinging down on him with both fists. The sound of contact surprisingly hollow and dull, like checking to see if a coconut is ripe yet, and not at all the bright crack I'd learned to expect from the movies. I wouldn't know otherwise. Until this moment I've never hit anyone in my life.

Part of me expecting one of the guards to burst in and throw me off him at any second, but either they've left their post to fetch coffee or are too busy enjoying the show themselves. Whatever the reason I get in a few direct thuds on both sides of Tripp's head before he starts blubbering for me to stop, blood spilling out from his nose and over my hands, almost orange in the institutional light of guttering fluorescent tubes. Only then does the thought occur to me that maybe this isn't an entirely wise idea, physically assaulting my own client in this way. Knocking the living shit out of him as a matter of fact. And I'm supposed to be the guy's lawyer. There are still professional obligations to consider, basic expectations of conduct, oaths of the bar to be honored. But it appears I don't care about that anymore.

Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me,
I'm panting into his face, his collar still bound in my fists.

''Stop!''

''Tell me the truth.''

''Why do you care?''

''Because I fucking do, that's why.'' I loosen my grip. The tickle of air pulsing up his windpipe beneath my hands. ''Because I've heard them too.''

''So you know.''

''I know you have to give their story an ending, Thom. Because keeping it to yourself is going to kill you. It's already killing a lot of others. The McConnells, Brian Flynn, the people in town who loved them. And you're the only one who can let them go.''

''What about you?''

''Me, too, probably,'' I say, the air between us thickening into a liquid fog. ''It's killing me too.''

His breath enters and exits in tin-whistle squeaks, and it's some time before I realize his chest is still supporting the full load of my weight. Without letting go of his collar I get to my feet, bend over close enough that I can smell the sharp lemon-lime of prison soap on the skin at his neck. Then I'm dragging him forward across the tiled floor, his head lowered into his overalls as though tucked within a body bag yet to be fully zippered closed at the top. When I reach the opposite wall I lean him up against it, palms pressed against his collarbone in order to hold him steady.

''It was the Literary Club, wasn't it, Thom? That's where you got the idea to go to the lake. For the girls to wear their dresses with the blue ribbons. For the three of you to have your last performance.''

Tripp looks down at his hands that lie limp on the floor, each of his fingers painted with a coating of his own blood.

'' 'By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.' ''

''The three witches. Was that it? You and the girls going off to the lake to cook up a spell?''

''Not
me
. The three of
them
.''

''So they knew about the Lady as well?''

''I told them the story but they'd heard it before. Weren't even scared. But then they wanted to know all the little details, and when I didn't have anything more to tell they started making things up on their own. That the Lady had risen up out of the lake and was coming after them. That she was going to take them both down to the bottom with her. To 'ease her pain through living death,' as Krystal liked to put it. Got so that all three of us were living in a ghost story and stayed so long, it started feeling as real as anything else.''

Tripp manages to raise a hand to wipe the pink speckle of spit from his chin. ''They wanted to see her for themselves,'' he says. ''And you know something? I think they finally did.''

Then he tells me how he did it, his words cool and plain and slow. Telling how it was the girls' idea to stand out in the water and crouch down to look under with their eyes open to see if the Lady would show herself to them. Up to the waist himself, his shoes planted in the loose mud, Krystal on one side and Ashley on the other. Bringing them close against his ribs when they came up for air and telling them they were his, that they'd always be his, that all he wanted was for them to stay with him forever. Asked him when they would get to hear the ghost's voice too. Right now, he told them. All they had to do was listen in the right way. How if they really wanted to see the Lady they'd have to walk out a little deeper, hold their breath, and go all the way under, look as far out into the dark as they could.

And what did they do? I ask him.

They did exactly as I told them, he says.

Then tells of how he kept them under, one hand on top of each head. Not as difficult as it might sound if you keep both arms stiff at your sides, elbows locked. A process requiring patience more than anything else, really. Eyes held out over the pallid scales of the lake's surface. Their screams, if there were any, failing to reach his ears.

And their stillness afterward. The way they floated next to him for a while, faceup, light as fabric, eyes wide as dolls'. How he stayed with them and they with him and for all this time no thought but this passed through his mind.

Oh, yes, he answers my murmured interruption. A certain amount of hair pulling was definitely involved.

But with the coming darkness he was reminded that he had to move and without considering the grim logistics involved he simply pushed them out into the water. He was surprised to see how far they went on their own, their white dresses moving about them like wings, hair lingering on the surface even as the rest of them went under until it, too, was finally pulled down and was gone. Even at the time he was aware of how none of this--their struggle, the flash of bubbles breaking about him as though the lake were boiling, the final moon-catching disturbance of the water as they went below--seemed to make any sound at all.

I ask him if he recovered the bodies later and hid them somewhere else and he tells me no, they went down on their own and he had nothing more to do with it. But I'm asking him more things. About how unlikely it is that the bodies wouldn't have been easily found if he had just pushed them out like that without their being weighed down. About the physical difficulty of holding two healthy teenaged girls underwater for that long without some kind of assistance. About whether he's sure he's telling everything known to him with regard to the circumstances of the crime. And he tells me yes, that's all. That's how it happened.

''What I need is for you to tell the court what you just told me, Thom,'' I'm saying now. ''But without anything about the Lady. Okay?''

''I thought you wanted the truth.''

''For our purposes the court doesn't need to hear the whole truth. Remember what you told me? A good story should
make you believe.
''

Tripp's head starts shaking in what I take to be the first signs of shock, but it's not. It's a laughter too weak inside of him to make its way out. My client with his head held an inch above my bare arms, laughing at me.

''I'm glad it was you, Richard,'' he says.

''Who told you that was my name?''

''Who do you think?''

Pull my hands away from him as though I only now recognized they were being held above an open flame. Step back until I find the table behind me and grip its edge. Even from this distance of a few feet he's suddenly smaller, his body sucked dry. Sit on my hands as much for balance as to wipe the blood off my knuckles. Tripp closes his eyes, focusing on his words.

''Can I ask you for some lawyerly advice, Mr. Crane?''

''Go ahead, Thom.''

''If I plead will it stop?''

''I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it'll help.''

Then he opens his eyes and shrugs. That's it. Nothing but a slight raising of sinewy shoulders to indicate his acceptance of damnation.

''Your wife steals them from you. They run off with the kid down the street. They grow up into women. They change,'' he says. ''It's all the same, though, isn't it, if the only thing you want is for them to stay?''

I say nothing to this, and in the seconds that follow he allows his shoulders to gradually lower again. Pulls a spaghetti noodle of half-dried blood from his nose. I step forward to take hold of him under the arms and slide him up until he's standing against the wall.

When I knock on the door it takes a full minute before the guard arrives and, with a quick look my way at the sight of the blood on Tripp's upper lip, takes him by the arm. But before the two of them make it out to the hallway they stop and my client turns to face me.

''Will they let Melissa come visit?''

''Sure, if her mother will bring her. Sure thing. I'll contact her on your behalf if you'd like.''

''I'm not allowed to speak to them anymore. I'm not allowed to call.''

''Of course. I'll see what I can do.''

I say this. I give him my assurance, promise to provide this one comfort to the man who's paying me to represent his interests. But I know at the same time that I won't see what I can do. I say this knowing that as soon as I can, I won't have anything to do with Thomas Tripp ever again.

From the Murdoch Prison for Men I head directly for Goodwin's office. Even though it's only twenty to nine I've learned that it's his custom to slouch downstairs well in advance of the required time in order to move at a pace compatible with the limited capacity of his butter-clogged arteries: a lumbering scuff that tips his bulging upper half to one side and then the other like a harbor buoy caught in a stiff wind. But I'm in luck. As I slide the last five feet to his door on leather soles made slick by melted snow, grab the frame with one hand, and pull myself in with an accidental click of the heels I find that Goodwin's still there, putting the end to what appears to be a fried egg, cheddar, and peanut butter sandwich.

''Barth! Definitely your most spectacular entrance yet! But could you just sit down for a second? I swear to God you give me an upset stomach every time you come in here sweating and panting like you just finished a marathon. By the way, has your umbrella been working out all right? Next we're going to have to get you a proper down-filled, guaranteed-to-allow-circulation-to-essential-internal-organs-at-sixty-below winter jacket.''

''Thanks, Pete. But I don't think I'm going to need it.''

Goodwin lowers the last nugget of his sandwich to the tinfoil it came from and takes a slurp of coffee from its accompanying foam cup.

''And why's that?''

I lower myself into the chair before his desk, find Goodwin's eyes through the stacked files.

''I've reviewed the most recent DNA evidence with my client and discussed the implications upon the case for the defense in some detail. And under the circumstances I advised Tripp to consider changing his plea.''

Goodwin leans forward, his lower lip trembling outward like an unfurling tulip petal.

''And?''

''I believe he has agreed to do so this morning.''

''Agreed to--?''

''Plead guilty.''

''Oh.''

''You won, Pete.'' I extend my hand over the desk. ''Congratulations.''

Takes the hand and gives it a limp joggle, his palm slippery with egg yolk.

''He's pleading guilty?''

''There's no point in continuing in the face of overwhelming physical evidence. I mean, as you can appreciate from--''

''But it's
not
overwhelming!'' he almost shouts. ''The hair doesn't end it, not on its own. Even with the other things it's not enough. You
know
that. So why are you telling Tripp to plead? Now, without even introducing the defense's case? Why plead now, Barth?''