Nowhere Girl (17 page)

He made a
tsking
noise and wagged his index finger at me. “Try again, love. You know that's the million-dollar question. That's what everyone wants to know, isn't it? Why I dissected those seven lovely lasses. You're going to have to give me something of great magnitude in return.”

“Something made you do it.” I could hear the desperation in my voice, and I was sure he could too.

“You're missing a very important piece to this puzzle that has confounded you for almost two decades.”

I tried not to lean forward in anticipation. I had a quick vision of him confessing to killing my sister.

“But you're going to have to wait.” He yelled loudly for Jacobs, and the heavy door swung open.

“What? No! You said you'd talk to me.” I glanced at my watch. “You can't do this. You said you'd talk.”

Jacobs freed Larry Cauchek's hands from the table. Still cuffed, he stood silently by the door, waiting to be led back to his cell. “I guess you'll have to come back to see me, love.”

*   *   *

When he was gone, I waited for Brady to come in the door. As disappointed as I was that Cauchek had sent me away, I was still elated at my secret finally being told. I couldn't wait to talk to Brady about it.

Brady appeared from around the corner. “Let's go,” he said to the floor.

“That was amazing,” I said. “Thank you.”

But he kept walking two steps in front of me. We got all the way to the front desk before he finally spoke.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Okay,” I told him. I was still shaking inside, as if I'd gotten very cold and couldn't warm up.

I followed him down the prison steps and into a cloudless day. As soon as we got outside, Brady turned around, and I saw his face was red, his eyes furious.

“That's the last time you ever get in a room with Larry Cauchek.”

I took an involuntary step back. “Why? What do you mean?”

He pointed to the building. “What the fuck were you doing in there?”

“I thought I was interviewing a serial killer for my book.”

Brady put his hand through his hair and started walking. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. I had to rush to keep up.

“What?” I said.

Every single part of his body was tight, pent up. “I told you nothing personal,” he said when we reached the first row of cars. He turned around, not so much angry as confused, almost betrayed.

“I know, Brady. I'm sorry. It happened so fast, I—”

“Don't you see?” he interrupted. “Don't you fucking see?” He showed me his little finger. “That's how that son of a bitch got all those girls wrapped around his fucked-up pinkie.”

I swallowed. “Okay,” I said. “Listen, I'm safe. Nothing is going to happen to me in there. He's in shackles. He can't touch me.”

“But, Cady, it's not your body I'm worried about.” Behind him, a group of men came out of the prison. “It's your mind.”

*   *   *

After Brady went back in, I sat in the driver's seat. It was a warm late-April day, and the sun beating in my window calmed me. Larry Cauchek was not what I had expected. Even though the newspapers stated that he was an articulate, handsome man, I'd expected a monster, someone who barely spoke, and when he did, it'd be in monosyllabic grunts. Someone dirty and unintelligent. But what scared me most of all about Larry Cauchek was that if he'd been in a suit and tie, he would have blended right in with bankers on Wall Street or dads at school conferences.

 

CHAPTER

20

After we met at the precinct, I didn't hear from Patrick Tunney again for three weeks. The morning he called, I was doing volunteer work at the rec center, packing lunches for Stay & Play, a family-owned indoor playground that sold homemade sandwiches and pudding cups to their patrons. I'd been in the prep kitchen since sunrise, cutting crusts off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and stuffing juice boxes into brown paper bags when my cell phone rang. I didn't hear it because I had the radio so loud, but the screen lit up with
Det. Tunney
in bright letters across it.

“Detective Tunney.” I wiped my sticky hands on the short white apron I'd taken from the linen closet. “Hang on a sec.” Picking up the remote, I turned down an Arcade Fire song. “What's up?”

“I'm going to arrest you if you don't start calling me Patrick. You're making me feel old.”

No matter how big he was, Patrick Tunney had never outgrown the boyishness he'd had about him the first time we met at the school.

“Okay,
Patrick
,” I said. “Since prison stripes aren't flattering, I'll do as you say.”

“On you, I bet they are,” he said quietly.

I felt myself blush even though I was alone with two hundred snack packs of pretzels and carrot sticks.

His voice turned businesslike right away. “I'm sure you're busy, so I'll get right to it. I wanted to thank you for meeting with Jon and me. I know the stuff we told you is upsetting.”

I thought about another Savannah dream I'd had the night before, and although I didn't believe in divine intervention, this seemed like a sign. “I'm glad you called,” I blurted before I lost my nerve. “I need to talk to you about something.”

I could hear his breath through the phone, slow and steady. “Is everything okay?”

I didn't know how to answer that. “Yes, but I need to see you again.”

“It sounds important. Do you have time today?”

I checked my watch. “I'm at the rec center. If you don't mind packing lunches, I could talk to you now.”

“I'll be there in a few,” Patrick said. And then he signed off.

I ran to the bathroom to take inventory of myself. I hadn't showered that morning, knowing I was going to spend it alone among sticky, messy sandwiches, and I'd dressed in workout shorts, hoping it would motivate me to go for a run later. I'd been wearing gym clothes for years, and not once had it gotten me off my ass. Before I could even pull a comb through my hair, I heard footsteps and went out to see Patrick through the porthole window in the swinging kitchen door. I pushed it open. “How did you—”

His cheeks reddened, and I wondered which of us embarrassed more easily. “I called from the parking lot.”

I fixed my hair with a bobby pin that had come loose and tried to smooth my T-shirt. “How did you know I wanted to see you?”

“A boy can hope, can't he?” We both flushed scarlet.

“But how—”

“I'm a detective.” My eyes widened, and he quickly added, “I remember you mentioning your volunteer work when channel eight interviewed you.”

“Here, come sit with me.”

I took off the apron, tossed it on the stainless steel counter, and led him to a small table in the playroom. He sat across from me in his pressed shirt and a blue tie with hunting dogs on it. He was so broad the dogs appeared lost and tiny.

“Are you undercover in the banking world?” I asked.

He frowned in confusion and then followed my gaze to his shirt. “Oh, this?” He held up the tie. “I'm actually off today, just trying to look presentable.”

“You passed with flying colors.”

He clasped his hands together. They were huge. They could do anything from building a house to strangling a man.

“Patrick, I have to tell you something.”

I'd had no intention of ever talking to anyone about my dreams, but after our meeting at the police station, I knew they were another piece to this puzzle. He had a hunch, a feeling about the original profile being wrong. Something that might not mean anything, but maybe it would. It was exactly the same as my dreams.

So I told him about them, how I'd been keeping a journal, how some seemed to mean something, and I was positive Savannah was pointing me toward a clue. “I had another dream last night,” I told him. It'd been the clearest and most disturbing one yet. “She was still alive.” I couldn't speak my sister's name out loud. Not now. “She was talking to me, but I couldn't hear her. There was too much noise, but she was so desperate for me to understand what she was saying.”

“What was the noise?”

I could hear it again as if it was happening right then. “Someone was crying.”

“Was it Savannah?”

“It couldn't have been her. She was talking, trying to tell me something.”

“Do you recall the voice? Was it male or female?”

“It was definitely a man's voice. And I woke up thinking that judging from the baritone, it was a big man, a broad man.” I suddenly realized who it was. For a second, I couldn't breathe. “It was the killer.”

Patrick stared at me for a long time, his green eyes lighter than I remembered. Gold shot through in prisms.

“Oh God,” I finally said. “You must think I'm insane. I'm sorry. You did not come here to listen to my psychotic ramblings.”

“I came here
because
of your psychotic ramblings.” He put his hands on the table. “That didn't come out right. I'll listen to anything you have to say.” His confirmation felt like a cool shower on a hot day. “Is there anything else about that dream?”

I took a long time to decide if I should tell him. “Even though I can't hear what she's saying, I can see her neck.”

“Her neck?” He pulled a small notebook and a pen from his breast pocket and wrote down a few words. “That makes sense, considering how she was…” He let his voice trail off.

“She wasn't showing me what was there. She was showing me what wasn't.”

“I don't follow.”

“Her necklace.” I pulled my matching necklace from under my nylon running top. “She was trying to tell me something about this.” I held up the slanted, backward
f
so he could study it.

He fingered the pendant. “We never found that necklace,” he said. “I thought it meant something back then, when the case was fresh. I tried to get Captain Fisher to let me investigate it in more detail, but he said we didn't have the resources.”

I closed my eyes at the mention of Emma's father. I'd always kind of hated him, and now I hated his daughter too.

“That's what I think the dream is trying to tell me. Find the necklace, and you've found the killer.”

Patrick let go of the pendant and leaned back against the plastic chair. “We had vehicles on the grounds. It could have gotten crushed or mashed into the earth. And the crime scene was contaminated. It's hard to keep a site clear with that much activity. Anyone could have picked it up.” His memory for all things Savannah was as good as mine.

Tears pressed against the backs of my eyes, surprising me. “Why do you sound like you're trying to talk me out of this?” I hadn't realized until that moment how much I cared what Patrick Tunney thought, how much I needed him to believe in this with me. “I have to get those lunches out by ten.” My voice was edgier than I'd meant it to be.

Patrick's lips parted in surprise. I thought he was going to say something, but he didn't. I'd seen my father do the same thing a million times, when my mother was trying to pick a fight. He'd sit for a minute and then keep talking as if my mom wasn't about to lose her shit.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I made so many mistakes back then. Giving up before we found the necklace was one of them. I've taken up enough of your time. I'll let you get back to work.”

He got up and headed for the door. I followed him, stopping at the window to pull back the white linen curtain. The parking lot was empty save for our cars. A crow on the power line was calling out, a dark, frantic sound, and Patrick stopped, his hand on the doorknob. I heard him take a deep breath before he finally turned to face me.

“We don't have any new evidence or leads,” he said. “But now more than ever, I am convinced that Savannah knew her killer.”

That was the one thing I'd been sure of after the dream. “I know,” I said. “I guess I've always known.”

 

CHAPTER

21

Of course, Greg and I had talked about therapy before. When I got the first book deal and the film option offers started rolling in, the power dynamic had shifted, and one of us, in some argument or another, had suggested it but never followed through. And after the first miscarriage, he'd proposed it again when I couldn't stop crying one Sunday morning, and he couldn't get me out of bed. But therapy was something I associated with things being very bad. Not marriages in tough spots but girls with razor blades who didn't mind the sight of their own blood but rather welcomed the relief it brought.

The first time I cut myself had been an accident. I'd come home from school early, an in-service day for teachers, early March, the frozen puddles along the roadsides starting to thaw and that wet mud smell in the air. The slog of late winter was a cruel reminder of Savannah's light, her blond hair swinging, the excited giggle, the way she'd run into the house breathless, hungry, grabbing snacks and soda so we could team up on the couch to watch those after-school soaps she loved.

I'd done it cutting a bagel in the kitchen, the knife slipping and slicing the soft part of my palm like you might crack a door. Spots of blood on the floor, bright—beautiful, even—and it wasn't until I lunged for the dishrag and had wrapped it tightly around my hand that I realized I wasn't in pain. The rhythmic pulsing in my palm felt good. With every heartbeat that seemed to pump there, I felt alive, deeply free.

Years later, I would realize it was somehow erotic, the pain sensual. But back then, I only knew it felt comforting. I fumbled through the cabinet in the bathroom, found the clean, raggedy towels my mother used for dusting, and sat at the kitchen table with a
Seventeen
magazine with the intention of waiting it out. But as the shock wore off and the bleeding slowed, I had a hard time focusing. I wanted instead to study the blood seeping into the towel. The more I watched, the better I felt. The weight that had been crushing me for months was gone.