Nowhere Girl (15 page)

“You don't shower enough,” I said.

That got a half smile out of him.

“And you should wash your sheets and throw away your pizza boxes and start going to the gym and quit rotting your mind on video games. You should probably get a nose job while you're at it and a haircut and brush your teeth.”

Then he started laughing, and I laughed with him. And when we were done, David said, “I was so pissed at you for meeting her because, I don't know, I guess I'm ashamed.”

I thought again of what Chandler had said. “That I went instead of you?”

“No, that Emma is right. We can barely speak our sister's name aloud, never mind talk about what happened to her. And then to us.”

 

CHAPTER

17

“Cady.” Patrick was in jeans and a T-shirt, his face clean shaven, a razor nick on his chin. He reached out his hand and I took it, surprised at how good it felt to touch him, how familiar was his smell of coffee and lemon soap.

“Thanks for coming in,” Detective Caritano said.

“No problem,” I told him. The week felt like it had dragged by.

He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Have a seat.” He pulled out a chair for me, and I sat at the table where I saw they'd placed a small microphone. “So we don't forget anything.” Jon Caritano smiled. “Coffee?”

I held up my hand to indicate I didn't want any.

Patrick sat down next to me and grinned. Out the window, the rain kept on as it had for most of a week, sliding down the pane in gray streaks. “How's the book coming?”

“Slowly. I finally found a key piece to my research, though.”

Patrick's eyebrows shot up.

“I needed to talk to a murderer, to really understand how they think. I never thought it would happen, but I finally got one.” I smiled despite the fact that I was trying not to. “Added bonus. He's a serial killer.”

“Jesus Christ,” Caritano said. He adjusted the microphone.

Patrick's voice was intense. “Who is it?”

My neck flushed, and I suddenly wished I hadn't said anything. “Oh, just someone a guard at the South Jersey Pen hooked me up with.”

Patrick leaned forward, and he put one of his huge hands on the table. “There's only one serial killer at that prison.”

“Yeah. I know.” I felt like he was going to yell at me.

“Cady,” he said again, his voice urgent. “We need to talk about this.”

Jon had started to speak, and I really didn't want Patrick or anyone to try to talk me out of interviewing Larry Cauchek, so I put my hand up to stop him.

“I can't talk about it,” I said. “I promised them I wouldn't.”

“So…” Jon smiled at Patrick, maybe asking permission to get back to why they'd called me. “Patrick told me all about you, and he thinks now that we can bring this case up from the basement, you might be able to help us. I know this is difficult for you, so we'll go slowly.”

“You don't think this was some random killing done by a sociopath on his way through town,” I said.

They both studied me.

Finally, Jon spoke. “This is what we've come to know. Whoever killed your sister cared about her. I've never said anything before now because I couldn't prove it, and frankly, the politics around this case were hell.”

“Politics?” I asked. Patrick and Jon exchanged glances. “What does that mean?”

Caritano sighed and undid the buttons on his cuffs. “Cady, there are things we can talk about here and others that we can't discuss. One of them is Captain Fisher and the way he ran the department.”

Patrick drew his eyes up to mine. “We need to focus on your sister,” he said quietly. “The mur— The crime scene is not exactly what it seemed.”

“It's okay,” I said. “You can say
murder
. My sister was murdered. I know that.”

“There was something about the murder scene that…”

He paused and studied the middle distance between us. I did the same thing when I was writing and couldn't think of the exact right word.

“That didn't quite add up,” he finally said.

Was he fucking with me? “What?”

He held up his hand. “I know, and I'm sorry. But there are things that didn't make sense. She'd been bound, but her hair was still in its braid. And her assailant took the time to remove whatever he'd used in the attack. In some ways, it didn't look like she'd struggled.” He was talking fast. “It didn't seem as though she'd tried to escape. She was still wearing a sweater and skirt, but her underpants had been removed. Yet there was no sign of penetration.” He quit talking. “Shit,” he said quietly. “This isn't going to be easy.”

“It's hard to fight when you're being choked,” I said. “Maybe he used a condom and she thought that if she let him rape her, he'd leave her alone after.” I turned to Patrick. His green eyes turned serious. “Savannah was a hundred pounds with all her clothes on. There's no way she could have overpowered anyone.” Patrick got up and took three bottles of water out of a minifridge in the corner.

Jon's voice was low, almost apologetic. “Cady, people either run or fight when they're attacked. They freeze, yes, but only after running or fighting fails. It doesn't seem like Savannah tried to do either.”

“So you're saying it was her fault? She didn't fight hard enough? She didn't scream loud enough?” I could feel myself losing control, wanting to get up and strike Jon Caritano for blaming my sister for her murder. “Was her skirt too short? Did she have it coming?”

Patrick passed out the waters and sat down.

Caritano spoke. “No, not at all. Of course this wasn't Savannah's fault. It's never the victim's fault. But you have to understand—”

“But I don't understand! I don't understand how someone could murder a sixteen-year-old girl and get away with it.” I was trying to stay calm, trying to remind myself that Patrick and Jon were the good guys. The ones who cared enough to open a case that had been all but forgotten more than fifteen years before.

“Listen,” Caritano said. “Oftentimes, the police will make a choice to keep information from the public so they can search without the perpetrator knowing he's under suspicion. Perps tend to get sloppy when they think we're on the wrong track.”

Patrick leaned over and turned off the microphone. “The truth is, Captain Fisher didn't want to focus on this case. He wanted it to die down. He wanted the town to believe it was a frenzied stranger attack, not someone who lived here. Captains get reelected when the town believes they are safe. If it was someone who lives here—”

I got up. I could feel that strange sensation in my veins, as if the blood was jumping, the same one I used to feel in the months after Savannah was murdered, a fiery restlessness.

Caritano watched me pace. “We told the town it was a crime of opportunity. We made them believe everyone was safe. But we continued the search for what we call a friendly perp, and when none turned up”—he showed me his hands—“they closed the case.”

A white rage blurred my vision. “Did you know this, Patrick?” He kept his gaze on the table. “Did you?”

Finally, he lifted his head, and his eyes met mine. “Yes,” he said.

“And you never told me?”

“You were a kid, Cady, and kids talk.”

“I wouldn't have told anyone.”

“I know,” said Patrick. “But that's what he was worried about.”

“That changes the whole fucking profile.” I felt caged, empty, as though I'd been carved out.

They exchanged a look I couldn't quite identify. Shame? Regret?

“Yes,” Jon said. “It does. And we feel badly about this. We realize you've been barking up the stranger tree for years, and in truth, we should have told you well before this that we thought it was someone Savannah knew. But Fisher was at the helm, and we've never been able to prove our theory, so what was the point? Fisher's opinion was that community is important here. You start pointing fingers, and a town can fall apart.”

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “So you lied,” I said.

I was thinking about my dreams. Not the ones where Savannah came to me with a message, a missive, but the ones where I might be seeing her killer. And then, although they said it was impossible, I saw a shadow on the other side of the one-way mirror. Were we being watched? Did they bring in a profiler to gauge my reaction, search my expression for clues? If they were convinced that whoever killed my sister may have loved her, was I now a suspect? All the research I'd ever done said that the person who calls in the crime usually committed it. I even knew where to find her. All this time, I'd thought they'd believed that I shared something with Savannah, an internal GPS, an emotional current that kept us connected. But maybe now they thought I held down my skinnier, prettier twin and choked her.

“I need to ask you both a question. Why are you reopening the case? My parents moved away. David and I aren't pressuring you. I doubt the new chief of police will want the headache of stirring everything up again. So why are you doing it?”

Patrick got up and came around the table. He stood for a moment, towering over me, before he sat down. “Because certain cases are meant to be solved. For some people, the burden of a secret is too much. It's been my experience that perps want to confess. Especially when they're people like you and me.”

*   *   *

By the time I got home, the rain had let up, and darkness was falling. One light was on in the living room, and Greg was sitting on the couch. He had his feet up on the coffee table, and he was wearing suede slippers. I stood in the living room doorway.

“Hey,” I said.

His hair was messy, as if he'd run his hands through it a bunch of times. “Hey,” he told me.

I sat next to him with my back to the windows. For once, he was relaxing. He wasn't standing on his head in a yoga asana, reading a patient's file, ordering wine from some vineyard in Napa, or making plans to go to Lincoln Center.

“Sorry about the cheese,” I said. That fight seemed so long ago, I felt stupid apologizing now, weeks later.

He rested his head against the back of the couch. “Long day?”

I thought of Patrick in the interview room, the strange way I felt being back there, how that whole horrible time came flooding back. “Weird day,” I said. “Yours?”

“It was all right. Don't be mad, but I found a therapist for us,” he said. “Nice guy. I think you'll like him.”

I felt something like hope rise in me, and I had a quick, sweet vision of Greg and me before the bestsellers and the miscarriages, when he was still in medical school and I was still writing for Condé Nast glossies. Blueberries in bed and sleeping till ten, watching old movies and giving each other massages before we fell asleep.

“When do we meet him?”

“Wednesday,” he said. “At lunch.”

That he would schedule therapy during lunch when he might have a chance to be with Annika made the hope bloom harder.

“That sounds good,” I told him.

“What was weird about your day?” he asked. I could have told him about meeting with Patrick and Jon Caritano, how the cold case was out of storage and Fisher was officially gone, but instead, I said, “My period is late.”

There was only a moment's hesitation before he reached over and took my hand. His felt familiar, that same odd knuckle on the second finger, the calluses in the tips from playing instruments all his life. I kept it on my lap and ran my thumb around the palm. And as twilight moved in, I saw Savannah watching us from the keys of the Underwood across the room, looking so alive it seemed like she might step out of the picture.

 

CHAPTER

18

I was supposed to be researching the hypnosis article for
Vanity Fair
, but I didn't have time for it, and I'd called Deanna once to try to get out of it. “You're the perfect author for this, honey.” Deanna called me
honey
when she was feeling desperate. I'd been silent on the phone. And finally, she said, “Over two million readers, Cady. Do I have to spell it out? What's the problem? You can crank this out in twenty-four hours.”

Out the south window, a woodpecker was drilling into an old maple. I admired him, banging his head against something again and again until he got what he wanted. I hadn't been able to work on
Devils
or the article all morning. I was completely stuck. Instead, I studied the photos on the walls of my office. Savannah was in every one, of course. She was the reason I wrote my books; having her around me was essential. Seeing her everywhere somehow made me think about the time she ran away from home when we were eleven. David was thirteen, and our parents had let him go to a PG movie she'd wanted to see. I couldn't remember now what the movie was. But when they told her she was too young, she put four tubes of lip gloss, a hairbrush, her Walkman, and an INXS tape in her backpack, crawled out our window, and headed to Linda Smyth's house. Linda's parents were divorced, and her mother was always out somewhere—sleeping with men, we suspected. It was the perfect place to go if you were dying to be bad.

Savannah's timing had been off. It was already dark and had started to rain hard before she got to the privacy hedges surrounding our yellow colonial. She'd sneaked back in the side door and was halfway up the stairs, cold and wet, before our parents stopped her. I remember how her hair dripped on the carpet, silently listening as my mom told her David had more privileges because he was older and breaking the rules was not going to get her what she wanted. My father cleared his throat. “It's dangerous,” he'd motioned to the window, “out in the dark. At your age.” I'd been standing in the doorway of our room, watching them, and I'd seen Savannah make the decision to cry. It came over her face like a veil. As soon as the first tear fell, our parents backed off.