Speaking in Tongues (10 page)

Why the hell was Collier doing this? Why hadn’t the letters fooled him? He was a fucking lawyer! He was supposed to be
logical,
he was supposed to be
cold.
Why didn’t he believe the bald facts in front of him?

A dark mood began to settle on Matthews but he struggled to throw it off.

No, I have no time for this now! Fight it, fight it, fight it . . .

(He thought of how many patients he’d wanted to grab by the lapels and shake as he shouted, Oh, quit your fucking complaining! You don’t like her, leave.
She
left
you?
Find somebody else. You’re a drunk, stop drinking.)

And closing his eyes fiercely, clenching his fists until a nail broke through the flesh of his palm, he struggled to remain emotionally buoyant. After a few minutes he forced the mood away. He returned to the phone and called three Walkers in Fairfax before he got the household that included a teenage Amy.

“Yes, Amy’s my daughter,” the woman’s cautious voice said. “Who’s this?”

“I’m William McComb, with the county. I’ve gotten a call from Child Protective Services.”

“My God, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing to be alarmed at, Mrs. Walker. This doesn’t involve your daughter. We’re investigating a case involving Megan McCall.”

“Oh, no! Is Megan all right? She spent the night here!”

“That’s what we understand. It seems she’s missing and we’ve been looking into some allegations about her father.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Tate Collier,” Matthews prompted.

“Oh, right. I don’t know him. You think
he’s
involved? You think he did something?”

“We’re just looking into a few things now. But I’d appreciate it if you’d tell your daughter she shouldn’t have any contact with him.”

“Why would she have any contact with him?” the edgy voice asked. How easily she’ll cry, Matthews predicted.

“We don’t
think
there’d be any reason for him to hurt or touch her . . .”

“Oh, God. You don’t
think?”

“We just want to make sure Amy stays safe until we get to the bottom of what happened to Megan.”

“ ‘Happened to Megan’?
Please
tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t really say any more at this time. Tell me, where’s your daughter now?”

“Upstairs.”

“Would you mind if I spoke to her?”

“No, of course not.”

A moment later a girl’s lazy voice: “Hello?”

“Hi, Amy. This is Mr. McComb. I’m with the county. How are you?”

“Okay, I guess. Like, is Megan okay?”

“I’m sure she’s fine. Tell me, has Megan’s father talked to you recently?”

“Um,” the girl began.

“You answer,” the mother said sternly from a second phone.

“Yeah, like, he said she’s missing and asked me
about her. He was going to come by and get her book bag.”

“So he’s interested in what’s in her bag? Did you get the impression he was concerned with what might be inside?”

“Like, maybe.”

The mother: “You were going to let him in here? And not
tell
me?”

The girl snapped, “Mom, just, like, cut it out, okay? It’s Megan’s dad.”

Matthews said sternly, “Amy, don’t talk to him. And whatever you do, don’t go anywhere with him.”

“I—”

“If he suggests going away, getting into his car, going into his barn . . .”

“God, his
barn?”
her mother gasped. Yep, Matthews could hear soft weeping.

He continued, “Amy, if he offers you something to drink . . .”

Another gasp.

Oh my, this was fun. Matthews continued calmly, “. . . whatever he says tell him no. If he comes over don’t answer the door. Make sure it’s locked.”

“Like, why?”

“You don’t ask why, young lady. You do what the man says.”

“Mom, like, come on . . . What about her book bag?”

“You just hold on to it until you hear from me or someone at Child Protective Services. Okay?”

“I guess.”

“Should we call the police?” Mrs. Walker asked.

“No, it’s not a criminal charge yet.”

“Oh, God,” said Amy’s mother, the woman of the limited epithets. Then: “Amy, tell me. Did Megan’s father ever touch you? Now, tell the truth.”

“Who? Megan’s father? Mom, you’re such a loser. I never even met him.”

“Mrs. Walker?”

“Yes. I’m here.” Her voice cracked.

“I really don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.”

“No, no. We appreciate your calling. What’s your number, Mr. McComb?”

“I’m going to be in the field for a while. Let me call you later, when I’m back at the office.”

“All right.”

Matthews felt a cheerful little twinge as he heard her crying. Though Amy’s silence on the other extension was louder.

He couldn’t resist. “Mrs. Walker?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a gun?”

A choked sob. “No, we don’t. I don’t. I’ve never . . . I wouldn’t know how to use one. I guess I could go to Sports Authority. I mean—”

“That’s all right,” Matthews said soothingly. “I’m sure it’s not going to come to anything like that.”

“What if Megan’s mother, like, calls?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” Mrs. Walker echoed, “what if her mother calls?”

A concerned pause. “I’d be careful. We’re investigating her too . . . It was a very troubled household, it seems.”

“God,” Mrs. Walker muttered.

Matthews hung up.

What a mess this could become. The kidnapping had been so simple in theory. But, in practice, it was growing so complicated. Just like the art of psychiatry itself, he reflected.

Well, there were other things to do to protect himself. But first things first. He had to get Megan to her new home—with his son, Peter—deep in the mountains.

Matthews returned to the Mercedes. He pulled back onto the highway, noting that the white car was still sticking with him like a lamprey to a fish.

Amy wasn’t home.

Oh, brother. Tate sighed. Looked through a window, saw nothing. Walked back to the front door. Pressed the bell again. Standing on the concrete stoop of the split-level house in suburban Burke, Tate kept his hand on the doorbell for a full minute but neither the girl nor her mother came to the door.

Where’d she gone? Bett had said that they’d stop by soon. Why hadn’t Amy stayed home? Or at least put the book bag out on the front stoop?

Didn’t she care about Megan? Was this adolescent friendship nowadays?

“Maybe the bell’s broken,” Bett called from the car.

But Tate pounded on the door with his open palm. There was no response. “Amy!” he called. No answer.

“Go ’round back,” Bett suggested.

Tate pushed through two scratchy holly bushes and rapped on the back door.

Still no answer. He decided to slip inside and find the bag; a missing teenager took precedence over a technical charge of trespass (thinking: I could make a good argument for an implied license to enter the premises). But as he reached for the doorknob he
believed he heard a click. When he tried to open the latch he found the door was locked.

He peered through the window and thought he saw some motion. But he couldn’t be sure.

Tate returned to the car.

“Not there.” He sighed. “We’ll call later.”

“Leesburg?” Bett asked.

“Let’s try that teacher first. Eckhard.”

It was only a five-minute drive to the school. The rain had stopped and youngsters were gathering on the school yard—boys for baseball, girls for volleyball, both sexes for soccer. Hacky Sacks, Frisbees, skateboards abounded. After speaking with several parents and students they learned that Robert Eckhard, the volleyball coach, had put together a practice for three that afternoon. It was now a quarter to two.

Tate flopped down into the passenger seat of the Lexus. He stretched. “This police work . . . I don’t see how Konnie does it.”

Bett kicked her shoes off and massaged her feet. “Wish I’d worn comfy boots, like you.” Then she glanced toward the school. “Look,” she said.

When they’d been married Bett assumed that he knew exactly what she was thinking or talking about. She’d often communicate with a cryptic phrase, a gesture of her finger, an eyebrow raised like a witch casting a spell. And Tate would have no clue as to her meaning. Today, though, he turned his head toward where she was looking and saw the two blue-uniformed security guards, standing in one of the back doorways of the school.

“Good idea,” he said. And they drove around to the door.

By the time they got there the guards had gone inside. Bett and Tate parked and walked inside the school. The halls had that smell of all high schools—sweat, lab gas, disinfectant, paste.

Tate laughed to himself at the instinctive uneasiness he felt being here. Classwork had come easily to him but he’d spent his hours and effort on Debate Club and the teachers were forever booting him into detention hall for skipped classes or missing homework. That he would pause at the door on the way out of class and resonantly quote Cicero or John Calhoun to his teacher didn’t help his academic record any, of course.

The security offices in Megan’s school were small cubicles of carpeted partitions near the gym.

One guard, a crew-cut boy with half-mast eyelids, wearing a perfectly pressed uniform, listened unemotionally to Tate’s story. He adjusted his glistening black billy club.

“Don’t know your daughter.” He turned, called out, “Henry, you know a Megan McCall?”

“Nope,” said his partner, who resembled him to an eerie degree. He stepped into the school proper and disappeared.

“What we’re concerned about is this car. A man seemed to be following her.”

“A car. Following her.” The young man was skeptical.

Bett took over. “Around the school yard. This past week.”

Tate: “We were wondering if anybody might’ve reported it.”

The man’s face eased into that put-upon look
security guards are very good at. Maybe they’re resentful that they’re not full-fledged cops and could carry guns. And use them.

“Are the police involved?” the man asked.

“Somewhat.”

“Hm.” Trying to figure that one out.

“What happens if somebody sees something unusual? Is there any procedure for that?”

“The Bust-er Book,” the guard said.

Bett asked, “The . . . uh?”

“Bust-er. He’s a dog. I mean, a cartoon dog. But it’s like ‘Bust’ as in get busted. Arrested. Then a dash, then
e-r.
If the kids see something suspicious they come tell us and we write it down in the Bust-er Book and then there’s a record of it for the police. If anything, you know, happens.”

Tate recalled what Amy’d said. “It was on Tuesday. Out in the parking lot by the sports field. Could you take a look?”

“Oh, we can’t let you see it,” the guard said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Parents don’t have, you know, access to it. Only the administration and police. That’s the rule.”

“That’s it right there?”

The guard turned around and glanced at the blue binder with the words “Bust-er” on the spine and a cartoon effigy of a dog wearing a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat. “Yes sir.”

“If you don’t mind . . . See, our daughter’s missing. As I was saying. Could
you
take a look?”

“Just have the police give us a call.”

“Well, she’s not officially a missing person.”

“I don’t have any leeway, sir. You understand.” The guard’s lean face crinkled. His still eyes looked Tate up and down and his muscular hand caressed his ebony billy club. He was everything Tate hated about northern Virginia. Snide and sullen, this young man would see nothing wrong with a tap on the wife’s chin or a belt on his kids’ butts to keep the family in line. He was master of the house; everyone did as he commanded. And never ask his opinion about the Mideastern and Asian immigrants settling in Fairfax because he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms.

Tate looked at Bett. Her eyebrows were raised as if she were asking: Why was Tate hesitating? After all, he
was
the silver-tongued devil. He could talk anybody into anything. (“Resolved: The Watergate break-in was justifiable as a means to a valid end.” Lifelong Democrat, grandson of a lifelong Democrat, Tate had leapt at the chance to take the pro side of the debate and argue that irreverent position—for the pure joy of going up against overwhelming odds. He’d won, to the Judge’s shock and lasting amusement.)

“Officer,” Tate began, thinking of the rhetorical tricks in his arsenal, the logic, the skills at persuasion. Ratiocination. He paused, then walked to the door and motioned the guard to follow.

The lean man walked slowly enough to let Tate know that nobody on earth was going to make him do a single thing he didn’t want to do.

Tate, standing in the doorway, looked out over the school yard. “What do you see there?”

The guard hesitated uncertainly. He’d be thinking,
What kinda question’s that? I see trees, I see cars, I see fences, I see clouds.

Tate waited just the right amount of time and said, “I see a lot of young people.”

“Um.” Well, what the hell else’re you gonna see on a school yard?

“And those young people rely on us adults for everything. They rely on us for food, for shelter, for schooling, and you know what else?”

Video games, running shoes, Legos? What’s this clown up to?

“They rely on us for their safety. That’s what you’re doing here, right? It’s the reason they hired a big, strong guy like you. A man who’s got balls, who’s not afraid to mix it up with somebody.”

“I dunno. I guess.”

“Well, my daughter’s relying on me for her safety. She needs me to find out where she is. Maybe she’s in trouble, maybe she isn’t. Hey, let’s take an example: You see some tough big kids talking to a little kid. Maybe they’re just buddies, fooling around. Or maybe they’re trying to sell him some pot or steal his lunch money. You’d go and find out, right?”

“I would. Sure.”

“That’s all I’m doing with my daughter. Trying to find out if she’s okay. And going through that book would sure be a big help.”

The guard nodded.