Shattered Shell (17 page)

"Knew the minute we saw the bedroom was lit up like noon that things weren't right," Felix said. "And let's face it. We both looked at the door. Either she knew her attacker and let him in or the son of a bitch had a key to the place."

I nodded. "Yeah, I knew that, too. Just didn't want to admit it. Plus, I went to see the landlord yesterday, and he told me what he heard the night of the rape."

"Which was what?"

"Which was two guys, coming down the stairs, laughing and talking. Then they get into a car parked behind the house and drive away. You think a random rapist is going to park in a small lot like that, where he sticks out like a bass drum in a bathtub?"

Felix folded his hands before him. "What the hell are we involved with?"

"I don't rightly know," I said.

His voice was flat. "You think she faked the whole thing?"

A memory, of a broken shell, and then of a bruised face and shaking body in a hospital examining room. "No, not at all," I said.  "I saw her that night, and she was hurt bad. Somebody --- whether one guy or two or even six --- hurt her that night."

Our waiter dropped off the bill and Felix opened up his wallet. "Maybe our Kara has a secret life, something she doesn't want our police detective to find out."

"Maybe so," I said.

"So what do you intend to do about it?"

"I'm going to see Diane today, tell her what we've learned, and then go on from there."

Felix smiled, shaking his head. "You make it sound like you're getting your teeth cleaned. Listen, my friend, you're about to tell a woman that someone dear to her may be lying about a rape or something equally awful. If you think she's going to shake your hand and say thanks for passing that along, then you've gone into orbit."

"I know."

"From what I know of the lovely Detective Woods, she is going to explode, and it's not going to be nice."

I gathered up my coat. "I also know that, and I don't need you to remind me. Diane and I will be just fine. We've known each other for years."

Felix still looked bemused. "You want to get together again later this week, see what we do next?"

"Sure, but are you going to be around this afternoon?"

"Yeah, I will. Why? You want to talk again later?"

I got up and put on my coat. "No," I said, trying to put some humor into my voice. "If Diane gets really mad, she might put me in a cell this afternoon, and I might need to be bailed out. Can you do it?"

“Absolutely," Felix said, and there was no smile when he said it.

So much for humor.

I had called Diane earlier and we were to meet in the police station parking lot in about a half-hour, since she was going to drop off some paperwork she had been doing at home. Instead of driving home and then turning around and driving right back, I stayed at the beach and walked to the Tyler Point Market, where I bought a bouquet of flowers.

Most of the sidewalks weren't plowed --- with so few people living at the beach, what was the point? --- but traffic was so light that walking along the side of the road posed no problem. A few cars grumbled by, their sides whitened by the road salt that New Hampshire uses so lavishly on its winter roads, and seagulls flew overhead in the empty sky, no doubt wishing for the summer and the tons of food scraps to return. I walked past the empty and shuttered shops, yet there was some sign of life. On D Street, there were some yelps, and two children bundled in snow gear played among the snowbanks with a shovel and a broken chair. Their faces were alive with the reddish glow of those who are young and at play, and utterly innocent of where they are.

There was an odd quality about the air and light as I went past the empty and closed stores. I felt like I was trespassing in an amusement park condemned and prepared for destruction. With the piles of snow and ice and the empty shops, it seemed hard to believe that anything or anybody would come back to this place. But it happened, every spring, like the return of the migratory birds --- these stores and hotels and shops would open up again, and the tourists would return. You could guarantee it.

I stopped for a moment, catching my breath, looking over at the blackened hulk that used to be the Rocks Road Motel. But some businesses weren't coming back. I kept on walking, stopping only when I reached the crest of the Felch Memorial Bridge, which crosses over into Falconer, spanning the channel that connects Tyler Harbor with the ocean. I undid the plastic wrapping of the flowers and tossed them into the cold salt water. I didn't bother with a prayer. Those words would do nothing to bring them back or to punish the guilty. Instead I gave myself over to memories for a moment, recalling the members of my dead group back at the Pentagon, especially a very special woman with a bright smile, reddish hair, and a laughing look that seemed able to seize me for whatever ransom she desired.

The wind picked up, scattering the flowers on the water. Old scars under my clothes began to ache, and I turned around and started walking back to Tyler Beach.

We were parked between two pickup trucks, which were the unofficial off-duty vehicles of choice for most Tyler cops. There was a clear view across the unplowed lot to the chilly marshlands and the squat buildings of the Falconer nuclear power plant. Diane had a cup of coffee in her hands and said, "Heard on the news yesterday that the nuke has shut down for refueling. Going to be off-line for a couple of months."

"Feel any safer?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Every time they're down for refueling, that place brings in a couple of hundred contractors. That means two or three hundred lonely guys here in the middle of winter with paychecks in their pockets. Sometimes that means more work for me and the other cops, just when I need it easy."

My coat felt tight around my chest. "Anything happen yet with those workers?"

She looked right through me. "Stop dicking around, will you? What's going on?"

Here we go. I took a deep breath. "Diane, things aren't making sense."

"What do you mean?" Calm voice

“I mean we’re finding discrepancies in what Kara has told me and the cops.  And they’re not minor problems, not at all."

She looked through the windshield. "What kind of problems?"

I pressed on. "Kara said the man broke into her place that night. Diane, either the door was unlocked or she let him in or he had a key, for there was no sign of a break-in. Lock looked fine and the door hadn't been jimmied. She also said she couldn't get a good look at his face. You know that streetlight across the way lights up the entire bedroom and hallway. If someone had come into her room, she would have seen his face."

Her gaze hadn't shifted. "What else?"

"Other things that don't make sense. She's been with you for a while, and she must know how important evidence is --- yet she destroyed every piece of evidence she could before she went to the hospital. Her apartment has computer gear and jewelry and other stuff that's easy to pick up and fence, but nothing had been touched. Nothing."

A sip from her coffee cup. "You've been busy. Is that all?"

This wasn't going where I expected. "Just one more piece, and it's the hardest one to figure. She said there was just one guy there that night. The landlord said he heard two guys come down the stairs. Not one. Two. And then they got in a car parked behind the house and drove away. That didn't make sense, either, that a rapist would park in such a small lot where he would stand out and be remembered."

"Is that all?" she asked, voice still calm.

"That's it for now."

She turned to me and said, "No, that's going to be it. Period." Her chin scar was white and prominent, a blatant danger signal coming from Diane, but the calmness of her voice didn't match the whiteness of the old scar tissue.

"Listen, will you?" she said, looking out at the quiet marsh. "Don't think that I'm finally going off the deep end, but I need to say this. Look, I grew up in Porter, all right? Oldest of three girls. Mom worked as a beautician and Dad was at the shipyard. He drank, which was no big deal, but he could be a mean drunk, especially when times were tough, when there were layoffs. So he'd drink and, like most cowards, he was afraid, and he took his fear out on Mom. You know, until I was in high school, I didn't realize normal families didn't have mothers who wore sunglasses in the kitchen in the middle of the day, or who wore long-sleeve shirts during the hottest days of the summer."

A glance my way. "I'm sure that a psychologist or a psychiatrist would have a lot of fun with me, trying to determine why I love who I love is because of my father. Big deal. I just knew on day enough was enough, that no one would be around to protect my mom or my sisters, or even myself. The parish priest didn't care, our neighbors didn't care, and my guidance counselor didn't care."

A long, shuddering breath. "One of my uncles was on the Porter police force, and maybe that's why I always wanted to be a cop.  Uncle Ray was a good guy, but even he couldn't be around all the time. So one night, at some family get-together, I went to his gun collection and took one of his .38 revolvers. A week later, when the news from the shipyard was bad, ol’ Dad started hitting the sauce, and then he started hitting Mom. And when Mom was in the bathroom and he was in the living room opening up another cold one, his oldest and dearest daughter came in and surprised him. Oldest daughter put the barrel of that .38 into her father's mouth and cocked the hammer and said that if he ever touched Mom or her sisters ever again, she would blow the back of his fucking head out."

She looked bleak, her eyes pale. "Oldest daughter was sixteen at the time. The beatings stopped right there and never started again, and oldest daughter learned a very important lesson that night: When it comes to protecting loved ones, you can only count on yourself. No one else will do it. No one."

"Diane ---" I began, and she cut me off quick.

"Forget it, Lewis," she said, her tone sharp. "That's what I learned and that's what I should have remembered. I shouldn't have asked you to do anything."

"Diane, look, let me talk to Kara again and ---"

No!" She turned fully in the seat. "You're not talking to her again, not today, not ever. You just don't get it, do you? God, I hate to sound like a man-hating shrew, another goddamn stereotype, but you just don't get it. You assume the woman's lying or making things up. Damn it, for everything you said, there's another explanation.  You ever wonder how well that landlord keeps his spare keys? You ever think that maybe Kara was so terrified of what was going on, she kept her eyes closed through the whole thing? And that instead of acting coolly and logically after being raped, she panicked and washed everything? You ever think that your typical sex offender might not be a burglar at heart? Ever think that maybe the rapist brought someone along, someone to stand outside and keep an eye on things,
and that Kara might not have seen or heard him?  Jesus H. Christ, I thought you knew something about finding things out, you with the big spook background, but you came up with squat.  Not a useful goddamn thing."

"Look --- " and another interruption.

"No, you look," she said, her jaw set, her scar still an angry white. "Forget I even asked you to do a thing, all right? Just drop it and go back to your safe house and your books and your telescope and just leave me and Kara alone. You just keep on blaming the victim and playing your idiot games, but don't you dare talk to Kara and don't you dare cross me. Understood?"

Before I could say a word she was out the door, tears streaming down her face, and she turned and tossed the empty coffee cup at me. Cold wind blew through the interior and she slammed the door. By the time I got out she was in her own car, speeding out of the lot. I stood there for just a moment in the cold and empty lot, and then got back behind the wheel and folded my hands in my lap, for they were shaking so.

Later I called Felix, and he was to the point: "Are you calling me from jail?"

"No."

"The Exonia Hospital?"

"No, I'm at home, Felix," and I wondered if he could tell how tired I was.

He said, "Well, it couldn't have been that bad. You're not wounded and you're not in jail."

I recalled the fury in her face. "No, it was pretty bad. I told her about the discrepancies we learned, and she had an explanation for each problem. She also said that as men we, quote, didn't get it, unquote. She didn't take it well, and she basically told me to stay away from her and Kara."

"For a while, or forever?"

"I'm not sure," I said, realizing that Felix had asked an important question. "I really don't know what she meant."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"Short-term, I'm going to take a shower and open a beer. Long-term, I don't know. I'll probably give her a call in a few days or so, give her a chance to calm down some."

"Do you think she has a point?" Felix asked. "About the discrepancies we learned about Kara's story. Is Diane right?"

I took a breath. "I want to believe her, I really do, but there's something wrong about this whole mess. I just wish we knew more, but now, damn it, I don't know."