Speaking in Tongues (5 page)

He’d approached the abduction the way he once would have planned the treatment of a severely disturbed patient: every detail meticulously considered. He’d stolen the writing paper from Megan’s room in Bett McCall’s house. He’d spent hours in her room—when the mother was working and Megan was in school. It was there that he’d gotten important insights into her personality: observing the
three Joplin posters, the black light, the Márquez book, notes she’d received from classmates laced with words like “fuck” and “shit.” (Matthews had written a breakthrough paper for the APA
Journal
on how adolescents unconsciously raise and lower emotional barriers to their therapists according to the doctors’ use of grammar and language; he’d observed, during the session that morning, how the expletives he’d used had opened her psyche like keys.)

He’d been careful to leave no evidence of his break-in at Bett McCall’s. Or in Leesburg—where Dr. Hanson’s mother lived. That had been the biggest problem of his plan: getting Hanson out of the way for the week—without doing something as obvious, though appealing, as running him over with a car. He’d done some research on the therapist and learned that his mother lived in the small town northwest of Washington, D.C., and that she was frail. On Wednesday night Matthews had loosened the top step leading from her back porch to the small yard behind her house. Then he’d called, pretending to be a neighbor, and asked her to check on an injured dog in the backyard. She’d been disoriented and reluctant to go outside after dark but after a few minutes he’d convinced her—nearly had her in tears over the poor animal, in fact. She’d fallen straight down the stairs onto the sidewalk. The tumble looked serious and for a moment Matthews was worried—if she died Hanson might schedule the funeral around his patients’ sessions. But he waited until the paramedics arrived and noted that she’d merely broken bones. After Hanson had left a message canceling her regular
session Matthews had called Megan and told her he was taking over Hanson’s patients.

Now Matthews started the Mercedes and switched cars—parking Megan’s in the space his had occupied—and then sped out of the parking lot.

He took his soul’s pulse and found his mood intact. There was no paralysis, no anger, no sorrow dishing up the fishy delusions that had plagued him since he was young. The only hint of neurosis was understandable: Matthews found himself talking silently with Megan, repeating the various things he’d told her in the session and what she’d said to him. A bit obsessive but, as he’d occasionally said to patients, So what?

Finally, he turned the Mercedes onto the entrance ramp to I-66 and, doing exactly fifty-eight miles an hour, headed toward the distant mountains. Megan’s new home.

The woman walked inside the house of which she’d been mistress for three years and paused in the Gothic, arched hallway as if she’d never before seen the place.

“Bett,” Tate said.

She continued inside slowly, offering her ex-husband a formal smile. She paused again at the den door. The Dalmatian looked up, snarling.

“Oh my, Tate . . .”

“Megan gave her a bone. She’s a little protective about it. Let’s go in here.”

He closed the den door and they walked into the living room.

“Did you talk to her?” he asked.

“Megan? No. Where is she? I didn’t see her car.”

“She’s been here. But she left. I don’t know why.”

“She leave a note?”

“No. But her house keys’re here.”

“Oh. Well.” Bett fell silent.

Tate crossed his arms and rocked on the carpet for a moment. He walked to the window, looked at the barn through the rain. Returned.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“No, thank you.”

Bett sat on the couch, crossed her thin legs, clad in tight black jeans. She wore a black silky blouse and a complicated silver necklace with purple and black stones. She sat in silence for a few moments then rose and examined the elaborate fireplace Tate’d had built several years ago. She caressed the mortar and with a pale pink fingernail picked at the stone. Her eyes squinted as she sighted down the mantelpiece. “Nice,” she said. “Fieldstone’s expensive.”

She sat down again.

Tate examined her from across the room. With her long, Pre-Raphaelite face and tangle of witchy red hair, Betty Susan McCall was exotic. Something Virginia rarely offered—an enigmatic Celtic beauty. The South is full of temptresses and lusty cowgirls and it has matriarchs galore but few sorceresses. Bett was a businesswoman now but beneath that façade, Tate Collier believed, she remained the enigmatic young woman he’d first seen singing a folk song in a smoky apartment on the outskirts of Charlottesville twenty-three years ago. She’d performed a whaling song a cappella in a reedy, breathless voice.

It had, however, been many years since any woman had ensnared him that way and he now found himself feeling very wary. A dozen memories from the days when they were getting divorced surfaced, murky and unsettling.

He wondered how he could keep his distance from her throughout this untidy family business.

Bett’s eyes had disposed of the fireplace and the furniture in the living room and were checking out the wallpaper and molding. His eyes dogged after hers
and he concluded that she found the place unhomely and stark. It needed more upholstered things, more pillows, more flowers, new curtains, livelier paint. He felt embarrassed.

After several minutes Bett said, “Well, if her car’s gone she probably just went out to get something.”

“That’s probably it.”

Two hours later, no messages on either of their phones, Tate called the police.

•   •   •

The first thing Tate noticed was the way Konnie glanced at Bett.

With approval.

As if the lawyer had finally gotten his act together; no more young blondes for him. And it was damn well about time. This woman was in her early forties, very pretty. Smooth skin. She had quick eyes and seemed smart. Detective Dimitri Konstantinatis of the Fairfax County Police had commented once, “Tate, why’re all the women you date half your age and, lemme guess, a third your intelligence? If that. Why’s that, Counselor?”

Konnie strode into the living room and stuck his hand out toward her. He shook the startled woman’s hand vigorously as Tate introduced them. “Bett, my ex-wife, this is Konnie. Konnie’s an old friend from my prosecuting days.”

“Howdy.” Oh, the cop’s disappointed face said, so she’s the ex. Giving
her
up was one bad mistake, mister. The detective glanced at Tate. “So, Counselor, your daughter’s up ’n’ late for lunch, that right?”

“Been over two hours.”

“You’re fretting too much, Tate.” He poked a finger at him and said to Bett, “This fella? Was the sissiest prosecutor in the commonwealth. We had to walk him to his car at night.”

“At least I could
find
my car,” Tate shot back. One of the reasons Konnie loved Tate was that the lawyer joked about Konnie’s drinking; he was now in recovery—no alcohol in four years—and not a single soul in the world except Tate Collier would dare poke fun at him about it. But what every other soul in the world didn’t know was that what the cop respected most was balls.

Bett smiled uneasily.

Tate and Konnie had worked together frequently when Tate was a commonwealth’s attorney. The somber detective had been taciturn and distant for the first six months of their professional relationship, never sharing a single personal fact. Then at midnight of the day a serial rapist–murderer they’d jointly collared and convicted was sentenced to be “paroled horizontal,” as the death row parlance went, Konnie had drunkenly embraced Tate and said that the case made them blood brothers. “We’re bonded.”

“Bonded? What kind of pinko touchy-feely crap is that?” an equally drunken Tate had roared.

They’d been tight friends ever since.

Another knock on the front door.

“Maybe that’s her,” Bett said eagerly. But when Tate opened the door a crew-cut man in a cheap, slope-shouldered gray suit walked inside. He stood very straight and looked Tate in the eye. “Mr. Collier. I’m Detective Ted Beauridge. Fairfax County Police. I’m with Juvenile.”

Tate led him inside and introduced Beauridge to Bett while Konnie clicked the TV’s channel selector. He seemed fascinated to find a TV that had no remote control.

Beauridge was polite and efficient but clearly he didn’t want to be here. Konnie was the sole reason Megan’s disappearance was getting any attention at all. When Tate had called, Konnie’d told him that it was too early for a missing person’s report; twenty-four hours’ disappearance was required unless the individual was under fifteen, mentally handicapped or endangered. Still, Konnie had somehow “accidentally forgotten” to get his supervisor’s okay and had run a tag check on Megan’s car. And he’d put in a request for Jane Doe admissions at all the area hospitals.

Tate ushered them into the living room. Bett asked, “Would you like some coffee or . . . ?” Her voice faded and she laughed in embarrassment, looking at Tate, undoubtedly remembering that this had not been her house for a long, long time.

“Nothing, thanks, ma’am,” Beauridge said for them both.

In the time it had taken Konnie to arrive, Bett had called some friends of Megan’s. She’d spent the night at Amy Walker’s. Bett had called this girl first but no one had answered. She left a message on the Walkers’ voice mail then called some of her other friends. Brittany, Kelly and Donna hadn’t seen Megan or heard from her today. They didn’t know if she had plans except maybe showing up at the mall later. “To, you know, like, hang out.”

Konnie asked Tate and Bett about the girl’s Saturday routine.

“She normally has a therapy session Saturday morning,” Bett explained. “At nine. But the doctor had to cancel today. His mother was sick or something.”

“Could she just’ve forgotten about coming here for lunch?”

“When we talked yesterday I reminded her about it.”

“Was she good about keeping appointments?” Beauridge asked.

Tate didn’t know. She’d always shown up on time when he took her shopping or to dinner at the Ritz in Tysons. He told them this. Bett said that she was “semigood about being prompt.” But she didn’t think the girl would miss this lunch. “The three of us being together and all,” she added with a faint cryptic laugh.

“What about boyfriends?” Konnie asked.

“She didn’t—” Tate began.

Then halted at Bett’s glance. And he realized he didn’t have a clue whether Megan had a boyfriend or not.

Bett continued, “She did but they broke up last month.”

“She
the one broke it off?”

“Yes.”

“So is he trouble, you think? This kid?” Konnie tugged at a jowl.

“I don’t think so. He seemed very nice. Easygoing.”

So did Ted Bundy, Tate thought.

“What’s his name?”

“Joshua LeFevre. He’s a senior at George Mason.”

“He’s a senior in
college?”
Tate asked.

“Well, yes,” she said.

“Bett, she’s only seventeen. I mean—”

“Tate,” Bett said again. “He was a nice boy. His mother’s some executive at EDS, his father’s stationed at the Pentagon. And Josh’s a championship athlete. He’s also head of the Black Students’ Association.”

“The
what?”

“Tate!”

“Well, I’m just surprised. I mean, it doesn’t
matter.”

Bett shrugged with some exasperation.

“It doesn’t,” Tate said defensively. “I’m just—”

“—surprised,” Konnie repeated wryly. “Mr. ACLU speaks.”

“You know his number?” Beauridge asked.

Bett didn’t but she got it from directory assistance and called. She apparently got one of his roommates. Joshua was out. She left a message for him to call when he returned.

“So. She’s been here and gone. No sign of a struggle?” Konnie looked around the front hall.

“None.”

“What about the alarms?”

“I had them off.”

“There a panic button she could hit if somebody was inside waiting for her?”

“Yep. And she knows about it.”

Bett offered, “She left the house keys here. She has her car keys with her.”

“Could somebody,” Konnie speculated, “have stole her purse, got the keys and broken in?”

Tate considered this. “Maybe. But her driver’s
license has Bett’s address on it. How would a burglar know to come here? Maybe she had something with my address on it but I don’t know what. Besides, nothing’s missing that I could see.”

“Don’t see much worth stealing,” Konnie said, looking at the paltry entertainment equipment. “You know, Counselor, they got TVs nowadays bigger’n cereal boxes.”

Tate grunted.

“Okay,” Konnie said, “how ’bout you show me her room?”

As Tate led him upstairs Beauridge’s smooth drawl rolled, “Sure you got nothing to worry about, Mrs. Collier—”

“It’s McCall.”

Upstairs, Tate let Konnie into Megan’s room then wandered into his own. He’d missed something earlier when he’d made the rounds up here: his dresser drawer was open. He looked inside, frowned, then glanced across the hall as the detective surveyed the girl’s room. “Something funny,” Tate called.

“Hold that thought,” Konnie answered. With surprisingly lithe movements for such a big man he dropped to his knees and went through what must have been the standard teenage hiding places: under desk drawers, beneath dressers, wastebaskets, under beds, in curtains, pillows and comforters. “Ah, whatta we got here?” Konnie straightened up and examined two sheets of paper.

He pointed to Megan’s open dresser drawers and the closet. “These’re almost empty, these drawers. They normally got clothes in them?”

Tate hesitated, concern on his face. “Yes, they’re usually full.”

“Could you see if there’s any luggage missing?”

“Luggage? No . . . Wait. Her old backpack’s gone.” Tate considered this for a moment. Why would she take that? he wondered. Looking at the papers, Tate asked the detective, “What’d you find?”

“Easy, Counselor,” Konnie said, folding up the sheets. “Let’s go downstairs.”

What would Sidney Poitier do?