Authors: Eric Rickstad
The Silent Girls (8 page)
R
ATH UNDID THE
brass latch and opened the cover on the lacquered walnut box he’d built himself, complete with a purple velvet lining that looked refined but was cut from a Crown Royal sack. He hated Crown Royal. But the velvet looked good.
A set of three darts lay on the velvet. He picked up a dart, rolled it in his fingers, a solid, balanced heft. He’d made the darts, too. Tungsten tips, barrels of solid lead, the long, trim fletching made from the primary wing feathers of a mallard drake he’d shot on Ice Pond. The guys had given him shit about his “special” darts; but the guys knew he could throw a crushing game of Super Cricket or 21 with plastic Kmart darts better than any of their sorry asses could with these beauties. He’d made the darts out of boredom. A man could only do so much ice fishing during a Vermont February.
He took out the other two darts and set them down on his table in the alcove at the back of the Olde Mill Tavern. He’d come early. It was just 6:30 and the place, not being an after-work watering hole, was quiet, the jukebox sleeping, the TV above the bar, where a bartender cut up limes, was set to mute and
CLOSED CAPTION
. The house lights shone on hardwood tabletops that middle-aged waitresses wiped down with cider vinegar. He thought of his mother again. In her day, restaurants and bars had been choked with cigarette smoke she’d breathed in for twenty years until it had killed her.
A few old sods sat at the bar nursing beers and watching the news as Rath sipped a Johnny Walker Black, the best option the place offered. No single-malt here. He’d stopped by the drugstore and learned it would be several days before his Vicodin prescription could be filled. He tossed a few darts, turning over the missing girls’ files in his mind. Drank his Walker.
He was pulling the trio of darts out of the corkboard when he saw Laroche striding toward him.
Rath tossed back his Walker, “Couldn’t find a sub after all?”
“Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Laroche said, his face fraught with frustration. “I must have left ten messages. ”
“I thought I’d let you swing in the breeze.” Rath winked.
Laroche loosened his tie, took off his ill-fitting sport coat fraying at the cuffs, and draped it over a chair. His wrinkled white oxford was stained mustard at the pits. He ran his long fingers through his thinning hair, then signaled the sole young waitress who hopped over jauntily, her eyes alert and inviting.
“What can I get yah,” she trilled.
“Bud bottle,” Laroche said.
“Another Walker black,” Rath said. “With ice.”
“Easy-peasy,” she chirped.
Rath shot another trio of darts, letting Laroche stew.
The girl danced back over with a Bud longneck and Walker, set them on the table. Laroche handed her a twenty and told her to keep the change. “Thanks, mister,” she said, and sashayed off, high on life or one of its substances.
Rath stared at Laroche. Why was he paying for Rath’s drink when Rath had tugged his chain? Laroche sat in the chair where he’d tossed his coat. He looked stricken.
Had Laroche learned his wife’s night involved a man? Rath suddenly felt like a bit of a heel. Laroche was a good guy.
Rath glanced at the TV to see Senator Renstrom of Missouri, a long-shot candidate in the GOP presidential primary. He was planning an early fundraising stop in Vermont.
“I have news,” Laroche said, his face long and old now. Rath felt badly. He’d strung the joke out too long, not returning calls. The guy was clearly pained by learning about his wife.
Then, suddenly, Rath knew. He killed his Walker, his face going numb.
“It’s Ned Preacher,” Laroche said.
“What about Preacher?” he said, his voice a whisper.
“He’s up for parole.”
Rath felt a stab of pain in his eyes. “No,” he said. “He got twenty-five to life
.
” His voice rose with desperation. “It’s only been sixteen years.”
“You know how these things happen,” Laroche said, his voice coming from down a long, dark tunnel. Rath knew all right.
These things
happened because the system
let
them happen.
Why they were let to happen,
that was the question. The answer stoked a rage in Rath: money.
In January 1989, Preacher had sodomized a twelve-year-old girl in Glens Falls, New York. Afterward, feeling “a kindness,” he’d let her go, naked and bleeding, into the Adirondack wilderness. “If God wanted her to live, she would,” he’d said. He’d stripped a child of her dignity and her trust in humanity, soiled her for his own cruel satisfaction, but since he’d “cooperated” and pled down from the aggravated first-degree rape and kidnapping he’d actually committed to a fabricated third-degree sexual assault of a minor that saved the state the
money,
the judge had set a $5,000 bail, stating: “I trust Mr. Preacher will honor the court’s decision to appear.”
Mr.
Preacher had jumped bail straight from the courthouse steps. Three months later, he’d been fingered in mug shots by a sixteen-year-old girl who’d been sexually assaulted in Rhode Island. By then, Preacher had moved on to Maine.
In 1990, he’d kidnapped a fifteen-year-old girl, clubbed her with an axe handle in a Portland Gas n’ Go parking lot, and driven her to a forest, where he’d raped her while he described in detail how he was going to kill her. After five hours of being victimized, the girl had managed to flee while Preacher had slept like a baby from exhaustion. He was caught. Again, he’d pleaded down, and again was given a lesser sentence on fabricated charges that did not speak toward the awful truth of what he’d done. He got five-to-fifteen. Served five.
Five.
In a minimum-security
corrections center
nicer than Rachel’s dormitory; moved from a maximum-security prison to the correction center after mental-health tests revealed: “Mr. Preacher is a
victim
of a low IQ. His actions feed his base needs and are not done with ‘criminal intent.’ He, and society, will profit from behavior modification. He accepts blame for his role.”
A victim? His role?
As if the girls he’d raped had played a role? As if Laura had played a role by opening her door. Who were these people who made such atrocious decisions? They had to be childless.
Preacher had been paroled after just five years of behavioral modification. He’d moved to Vermont and assumed a new identity, worked his odd jobs for folks like Laura and Daniel, then lit out for Maine, where he was suspected of trying to kidnap a woman and her daughter though they could not testify that it was him for sure.
His next stop had been a return to Vermont. To Laura.
Why he’d come back to Laura’s house was unclear. Perhaps because he knew her pattern and knew she’d likely be home alone during the day, even if he hadn’t known about the baby. Rath remembered Preacher’s laugh when he was hauled away by the bailiff, as if he knew he’d be out much earlier—a cold, dead laugh.
“So. He’s been a
good boy,
” Rath said, stung by humiliation, by his own impotency in the face of a system that gave lenience to perpetrators and forgot their victims. Time and again when Rath turned on the TV to see a rapist or a child molester brought into court, he learned that the perp had priors for similar crimes and had been released early. Every crime committed after the perp’s early release had been preventable.
During Rath’s first two years as a detective, he’d learned his idea of justice was a delusion. Cops reacted to violent crime. They could not stop it. Violence was an entwined thread in human DNA. Cops came in to clean up and hopefully arrest who’d done it. They were janitors. And once the system got the criminals, it was out of the cops’ hands. The DA charged perps as the DA saw fit, not the cops. And the system let freaks out for being
good.
Rath had thought there would be satisfaction in sending rapists or murderers to prison. There was a professional satisfaction. But not a personal one. Because this subspecies did not care about being in prison. They embraced being put among their own kind, where they could brag and learn from each other, wallow in a shared self-pity for all the wrongs exacted against them by parents and teachers and cops and wives, plot for another stab at things when they got on the outside. The only part of prison they resented was not being able to act on the animal urges that had put them inside to start. The criminal life was a state of mind, a belief as powerful and influential as any religion. Unapologetic and self-righteous. And you couldn’t put a belief in prison.
A look of embarrassment sullied Laroche’s face. “Good behavior gets a con up to six weeks served per year now. Multiply that over sixteen years.” He drank.
Rath stood, every cell humming like a high-voltage power line.
“Easy,” Laroche said.
“He killed my sister.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t
.
”
A heat spread in Rath’s palms, and he looked to see blood leaking from between his fingers, his fingernails cutting his flesh. “He can’t be let out,” he said.
“Odds are he won’t be.”
“Odds? We gamble on the Preachers of the world with the lives of little girls
.
”
“You have a right to attend the hearing,” Laroche said. “That’s why I’ve been calling you. You have a right to be heard.”
Rath fought to find words. “He gets out, he’ll do it again.”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s fact.”
“He’ll likely never see the outside his first go. It’s a flawed system. Agreed. But we have to accept it. If you don’t respect the law, how are you any different than the Preachers of the world?”
Rath smashed his hand on the table. “I don’t rape and slaughter mothers while their babies sleep
,
that’s how I’m different
.
Don’t dare compare me to that fucking animal
.
”
Laroche recoiled, face reddening. “Look,” he said, trying to gain composure. “We’re on the same side. Guys like us, we don’t have any power.”
“I have power.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“What way should I talk?”
“In a way your sister would respect.”
Rath pressed in close to the seated Laroche, towering over him. He felt as if he would shake apart. “You might want to look into who your wife is fucking,” Rath hissed and stalked out.
R
ATH PUSHE
D THROUGH
the porch door into his kitchen, regretting his savagery toward Laroche, the innocent messenger. His back roared with pain, and his head smoldered with vengeful thoughts of Preacher. He took a long drink of Lagavulin straight from the bottle. He needed to talk to Rachel. To see her. Be with the only family he had. He dialed her number.
Mailbox full.
Damn it. Where was she? He took another pull of scotch, texted Rachel. The screen was bleary.
I’m coming to take you out for a bite so you can have something besides Ramen noodles. I Love You, Dad
Rachel always laughed at his proper grammar and correct spelling. “That’s
not
texting. I don’t have time to read a novel.”
Rath headed out.
The Scout’s tires barked as he gunned it out onto County Road 15. He stopped at the Gas ’n’ Go to fill up the Scout, let the pump run, and stalked inside and bought beef jerky and a tin of Copenhagen. When he came out, the Scout was still gobbling down gas.
Down the street, the sign outside the Beehive Diner was lit, as were the signs for the Buck Rub Pub and Bistro Henry, a new restaurant trying to make a go with the localvore shtick.
He recalled Madeline from the Dress Shoppe asking when the last time was that he’d bought Rachel something on a whim. He’d bought her an iPhone in August, for his own selfish reasons—the latest, greatest way for her to keep in touch. That had certainly panned out. A gift would be nice. Rath ambled down Main Street to the Dress Shoppe.
A crowd of folks paced on the darkened sidewalk outside the Universal Church, toting picket signs he couldn’t quite read. A sandwich board outside Casablanca Video read: G
OING
O
UT
O
F
B
USINESS
(thanks Netflix!)
DVD
SALE OF “TITANIC” PROPORTIONS (
PUN INTENDED)
.
Rath popped a Tic Tac in his mouth, breathed in his cupped hands to check for boozy breath as he ventured inside with what he hoped was an easygoing air.
The toe of his boot caught on the edge of the carpet and he tripped, grabbing a mannequin in a corduroy jumper to keep himself upright.
He felt eyes on him, burning, a hand at his elbow.
“You really like that jumper,” a voice said.
He stood staring at Madeline with no comeback. He had none of the rapport he’d had as a young man. No chiseled physique to bolster his confidence. He wasn’t the young man he’d once been, and he did not grieve the loss.
He was more buzzed than he thought now that he was inside a warm, well-lit place. He stared at Madeline in her corduroy jumper the pale purple of lupine, her long, rich hair swept back from her forehead and kept in place by a velvet band of a dark purple. She took his wrist in her warm hand. She smelled vaguely of violets. The woman knew how to pull together a motif. “Do you bring good news?” she said.
Rath was confused.
“About the girl?” Madeline clarified.
Rath wondered if she thought investigators updated every witness.
Madeline let go of his wrist.
“No news,” Rath said, swallowing.
“No news is good news, right?”
In this case it usually means a corpse,
Rath thought. “I’m looking for something for my daughter,” he said. Had he slurred his words?
Madeline gave the bracelets on her wrist a smart jangle. “Wonderful.”
“I’d like to get something for a seventeen-year-old. Not the twenty-eight-year-old she thinks she is.”
“Daughters.” Madeline sighed.
“You have one?” He was feeling more at ease now.
“Two. From my first husband.
Only
husband. I make it sound like I bothered with a second.” Her eyes flicked over a rack of dresses nearby, then alighted on his face. “And, of course,
I
was one. A young daughter. I know the trouble we can be.”
“She’s no trouble.”
“Well, the heartache we cause whether we mean to or not.”
Yes,
Rath thought,
exactly.
“Your daughter, Rachel, doesn’t like dresses, correct?”
Rath was impressed Madeline had remembered Rachel’s name and her taste.
“I don’t know the last time I saw her in one,” he said. “She balked at going to her prom because of the mandatory dresses. She and her girlfriends had their own party instead of attending a dance of
forced institutionalized romance.
” Was he talking too much?
Madeline laughed, the sound of a bubbling brook. “I remember
those
days.” She escorted him through the store, inquiring about Rachel’s height and weight, eye and hair color. He told her: 5’ 3”, 115 pounds. Long black hair. Blue eyes.
Madeline asked how Rachel got across her
look.
“Jeans and T-shirts,” Rath said. “She goes barefoot all she can. As a toddler, she was always yanking off her diapers, shrieking,
naaay-kid.
Lately, she seems fond of overalls.” He was talking too much.
“We have great jumpers,” Madeline said.
“I noticed,” Rath said, meaning the jumper on the mannequin, but as he was looking at Madeline and her jumper, she said
thank you,
and touched her fingers to the jumper’s strap, color rising from beneath her tanned cheeks.
“How’s this?” Madeline pulled a jumper off a rack with a flourish, spreading it on her open palm and smoothing it out with the other hand. “The straps with brass snaps and chest pocket hearken to overalls. And the wide wale is more youthful, a bit rogue.”
“I see,” he said. Though he didn’t see. His head pounded.
“If she doesn’t like it, she can return it. Or you can.”
“OK.”
“You’re easy,” Madeline said. “Wait at the counter.” She glanced at her watch.
He ambled to the counter as she dimmed the lighting to that of a romantic restaurant, then locked the door and flipped the sign in the window:
CLOSED
.
At the register, she folded the jumper precisely, wrapped it in tissue paper, and seated it in a box. “Would you like it gift-wrapped?” she asked.
“It’s no special occasion. Just. Because.”
“That’s a good dad,” she said. “I’ll wrap it. Just because.”
Rath handed her his credit card and driver’s license.
She considered them, looking up at his face from beneath eyelids like tulip petals, dusted with a faint purple eye shadow.
“The card’s good,” he said, nervous in the silent store. He’d not been alone in such close proximity to a striking woman in years. When he swallowed, the sound of it seemed as loud as a waterfall.