The Shoal of Time Page 8

  “We drove around for a bit. She wanted to show me the places she suspected her husband was hanging out with other women.”

  “I thought you did mostly missing persons, not divorce.”

  She had done her research. “True. I agreed to this one for a friend. Someone who is less of a good friend now.” I was using my recent annoying client as my cover story. The more truth you have in your lies, the better.

  “Why is that?”

  “Not my favorite client. She wants to know, but doesn’t want to know, so I’m getting jerked around. No good deeds go unpunished.”

  She smiled at that one. She had a great smile. “Did you come back here after that?”

  “No, it was past lunch when we got done and I had no more pressing cases, so I decided to take a drive down to bayou country.”

  “Really? Just like that?” She made her skepticism apparent.

  “No, not just like that. I grew up out there.”

  “Where?”

  “Bayou St. Jack. You have to look pretty hard on a map, it’s a small little hamlet.”

  “You went there because you were hungry?”

  “Yeah. I could scarf down a greasy burger or go get a fried shrimp po-boy with shrimp just harvested from the Gulf. And pick up some crabs and oysters for dinner as well.” Then I had to add, “But you’re a Yankee, you wouldn’t understand how seriously we take our food down here.”

  “I’ve been here long enough to take food seriously. So how did a po-boy get your car parked off the road near a crime scene?”

  “What kind of crime?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you did the rest of your day?”

  “Oh, wait, I know what happened. There aren’t a lot of places to stop to relieve yourself. So I found a little abandoned driveway to pull off the road and went into the bushes to take care of business.”

  “That would take you, what, five minutes?”

  “It would have, if I hadn’t got distracted. The first promising location has something that could have been poison ivy, so I moved on. I found an appropriate spot and when I was finished noticed what looked like an alligator track. It’s too cold for them now, so I followed it as far as I could down to the bayou.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “I find a beauty in the swamp. Land that’s not meant for humans, with its stark splendor of scrub pines holding to the few solid places, the waves of grass a border between land and water.”

  “Kind of cold to be wandering around outside.”

  “Yeah, but I was out there and didn’t know when or even if I’d ever get back to that spot.”

  “So what happened?”

  I could see she wasn’t going to let it go. Stick as close to the truth as possible. “As I was heading back to my car, I heard a couple of gunshots. Decided it was time to get out of there.”

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  “No, I had no idea why they were shooting. Could have been a snake. Or just target practice. It’s a rural area. People shoot guns.”

  “You didn’t check it out?”

  “I’d just been peeing on someone’s private property. I wasn’t going to inquire why they were firing a gun. I got in my car and left. Oh, wait, I got a glimpse of the shooter through the trees. A big man, tattooed, bald or shaved head, and a big droopy mustache. I know you shouldn’t judge people by their looks, but he didn’t look friendly and I had no desire to meet him. I hurried back to my car and left as quickly as I could.” Mr. Tattooed Tattoos was there; I had no problem giving him up.

  “That was it?”

  “That was it. Who told you my car was there?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just the peon who talks to peons. I don’t always know where the tips come from.” Then she added, “I hope you’re telling the truth, because if you’re not, you could be playing a very dangerous game.”

  “What was out there that I almost stepped in?”

  She looked down at the floor, then directly at me, as if making a decision. “Drugs and gray-market goods. Basically anything they can make money with. Maybe even sex trade.”

  “Out in the middle of the bayous?”

  “It’s fairly close to the city, close enough to do a lunch run.”

  “It was a very good shrimp po-boy,” I defended myself.

  “Yeah? Maybe you should take me sometime.”

  “If we’re ever around there together, I will.” Not likely, but I knew a couple of places around Bayou St. Jack’s I could take her. I just needed to check they were still open. “Are you saying they might be doing human trafficking?”

  “Certainly possible. Anything for money. But we didn’t see any evidence of it there.”

  I couldn’t tell her about the red ledger. I’d have to leave that to Ashley’s team.

  She looked down at the floor again, then back at me. “Look, I know sometimes the money can be tempting. It’s just an easy favor—”

  “I’ve done nothing illegal. Do I call you guys every time someone makes an illegal left turn? No.” (I’d be calling every hour on the hour with the way people here drive.) “But if I stumble over something big, like drugs or forced prostitution, you wouldn’t have to find me, I’d find you. I’m not a saint, but I’ve never needed money enough to cross the line where people get hurt.”

  “People do get hurt. They get hurt every day.” She said it quietly, almost sadly.

  “Anything else you need to know?”

  “Not at the moment.” The quiet voice was gone. “I hope you’re telling the truth. I hate it when women I really want to be on my side turn out to be the ones I have to arrest.” She smiled, making it clear there was a compliment in her words.

  “Don’t worry, you and I will never play with handcuffs.”

  “That’s good because I’m not that kind of girl. Put them on too many crooks to think they’re fun anywhere else.” She smiled again.

  I smiled back. Emily Harris was a smart and attractive woman. I hoped we were on the same side.

  She gave me her card and I agreed to call her if I remembered anything else. Or if I stumbled over any crimes.

  Once she was gone, I called Ashley, but only got her voice mail. I left a brief message, “So far so good. If you want the details, give me a call.”

  After that I busied myself with the flotsam and jetsam of the day, checking email, checking the weather, all the little distracting things that make time pass. Filing, sending out reminders about unpaid invoices.

  After lunch, I was left with cleaning the bathroom. Cleaning toilets is one of my least favorite chores. I usually skipped over it by reasoning I was the only person who used this particular one, so it had to be germs I was already exposed to. Or that a healthy immune system needed an occasional challenge. Those covered most of the bases.

  Then I remembered Ashley talking about why she did this. She had mentioned a lost young girl who had never been found. I have an odd memory, and it tucks away little pieces of information. Ashley said her name was Kimmie Fremont, age thirteen when she disappeared and would be around seventeen now.

  Four years is a pretty cold trail and it didn’t happen around here, but I could look. If the police had done a thorough job of searching for her, there probably wasn’t much more I could do. But often the police had multiple tasks needing their attention, and they might dismiss a teenager as a runaway and give the case only cursory attention.

  Even if I only retraced old tracks, it was still better than cleaning the bathroom.

  A couple of hours on the Internet found the basic details. Kimberly Fremont, known as Kimmie, was from Rhinebeck, New York.

  It also filled in the usual sad details. When a thirteen-year-old goes missing and is not heard from again, the most likely ending is someday a hiker will stumble over a skull and she can be buried. Even her thirteen years didn’t seem like happy ones. Her mother was getting divorced from her third husband. None of the articles mentioned Kimmie’s father, so I guesse
d that he was long out of the picture. There didn’t seem to have been a custody battle, which is the most common reason kids get snatched. The stranger in the raincoat is more prevalent in our fears than in reality; it’s more likely to be the devil you know than the one you don’t. It had been a messy divorce, the wife accusing her soon-to-be ex of pawing her young son. The older daughter claimed Kimmie had called her and said she was okay the next day, but she was charged with watching her younger siblings and hadn’t let her mother know that Kimmie never made it home from school. The mother got in after her shift at the convenience store a little after ten and that’s when she discovered her daughter missing.

  I looked away from the screen. I wondered what had happened to them. The older daughter was only being a typical fifteen-year-old, but her moment of teenage inattention turned into a lapse with consequences that would haunt her. Maybe if she had noticed Kimmie wasn’t there earlier, those hours would have made a difference. I wondered if she was still asking herself that question. She would be nineteen now. In college, trying to find a redemptive path in life? Or working at the convenience store like her mother, maybe already married, already with a child? The young son. He would be around ten now. Did he remember his sister? The mother, was she on her next husband? Or the next? Or had she given up? What happens to a family when a child just disappears?

  I considered leaving it alone. If I was extremely lucky, the most likely outcome was that I’d find who murdered Kimmie and where the body was buried. I couldn’t know whether living with the terrible hope that the child might return was better or worse than knowing for sure she never would.

  I didn’t want to talk to the family, although that was the logical place to start. They hadn’t asked me to get involved and it felt like too much of a violation to call up and ask about their missing daughter.

  I got up from my desk and walked to the window. Spring would come again, but today was sliding into a gray winter evening, light filtered through clouds that were coalescing into thunderheads. It would rain tonight.

  Why was I looking for Kimmie Fremont? The bathroom wasn’t a good enough excuse. Occasionally I take cases that no one pays me for. Sometimes because I have something to prove, or I’m angry at what I see as a wrong. Sometimes people can’t pay me, yet they ask because they need the answer. Sometimes I agree with them and take on their search. Mostly I don’t. Often what they need is something I’ll never find for them—salvation, deliverance, forgiveness from someone who won’t—or can’t—forgive.

  Was the banal and ignoble reason that I wanted to impress Ashley? Or the slightly better reason that this lost girl was her lost cause and I wanted to bring at least one missing girl home?

  Four years gone. Maybe the family preferred hope. Maybe they didn’t want to think about it. Maybe it was none of my business.

  Or maybe I didn’t want to focus on my life and the mistakes I’d made, ones that held no chance of redemption for me.

  The rain started.

  Time to go home. I needed to do something besides stare at the gray sky, watching it turn darker and darker.

  Chapter Eight

  But the change in location did little for my morose mood. It was still dark, still raining. Ashley hadn’t called.

  The cold air of the refrigerator wafted over me as I stared at the bare shelves wondering what to have for dinner. The three-week-old cottage cheese wasn’t calling my name. Only the crab from last night was edible, but without a salad or ingredients to make crab cakes, it wasn’t much of a meal. I finally shut the door.

  You can break out of your self-imposed exile at any time, I told myself. Torbin called once a week—whether I wanted him to or not, as he pointed out more than once. He was now the special events coordinator for NO / AIDS Task Force, and it seemed about every week he was doing something and suggesting that I come along.

  Danny had given up calling. Mostly because I never answered or returned her calls.

  Joanne didn’t call. I had screwed up our friendship in addition to everything else I had messed up. She and her partner Alexandra had struggled after Katrina. Alex fell apart; Joanne, a police officer, had stayed in the city and held it together. In one of their broken-up periods, Alex and I had gone out for a pizza. It was intended to be a friendly pizza, two lonely women trying not to be so lonely. I had a couple of beers and we flirted. We went back to her place and started to go beyond flirting, but like a cheap, boozy comedy, Joanne chose right then to drop by to return some books of Alex’s.

  I always wondered if she saw my car in front of Alex’s apartment. In any case, Joanne wasn’t happy and she chose to focus her anger (major pissed off would be more like it) on me.

  I like to think Joanne realizing Alex might find someone else was the catalyst for them reconciling. A few weeks later they had started couples counseling and I had heard—via the message Torbin left at his last phone call because he’d run into Danny and she’d told him—Alex and Joanne were taking a long two-week vacation together out on the West Coast, starting in Napa Valley and driving up to Seattle.

  I was happy for them, not that being happy for them did much for my wretchedness. I tried to console myself that if I lived the life most other people lived, everything would be okay. If Cordelia had stayed healthy, we’d be together. Or if…but there were so many ifs, so many twists and turns and possibilities that it really did begin to seem like one butterfly on the far side of the world determined our fate.

  She had cancer. To get better treatment she’d gone to Houston, a seven-hour drive from New Orleans.

  Had it only been last summer? Just barely past six months—how could so much change be contained in so little time?

  The treatments were working, but there were setbacks, infections, adverse drug reactions, each threatening to swing a delicate balance between living and dying. Each one exhausting for her—and me—with worry and waiting.

  One of her sisters came down to stay. Half sister, younger by a decade, certain how life should be lived. She believed in her god and had never really approved of me. Well, in truth, had never approved of having a sister who was a lesbian, but made it clear that she could manage a “tolerant” bargain if Cordelia could at least be with someone respectable, perhaps a tenured medievalist or at least a lawyer (civil, not criminal). The sister had married well, a husband who made money the old-fashioned way, screwing people out of it. She called it hard work and creating a business out of nothing, skipping over that the business was a chain of check-cashing stores in low-income areas in the Northeast.

  She had the money and time to simply leave, rent a relatively nice residential inn, one with two bedrooms and a kitchen, near the cancer center and stay there. She thought there was something morally suspect about me running back and forth between Houston and New Orleans as if had I lived my life right—like she did—I would be able to stay with Cordelia the whole time. I think she lived her life to be superior to other people—better than Cordelia because she didn’t have cancer and far better than me because she had cleverly arranged her life to be able do the right thing—the perfect little Lady Bountiful ministering to her ill sister. We were polite to each other—how could we not be, with Cordelia sick and unable to keep the peace between us.

  In retrospect, I should have bitch-slapped her across the room and told her to take her self-righteous ass home. But in the way of the best manipulators she made herself useful. She provided the nice place to stay between treatments. She was there with Cordelia to fetch her water or alert the nurse if she was in pain. She took care of things, from returned phone calls to insurance paperwork.

  The months of constant travel, too much work, too little sleep or decent food took their toll on me. I got sick, both too sick to get on a plane and too sick to spend time with someone as precarious as Cordelia. Instead of the trek to the airport, I collapsed into bed and stayed there from Friday night until Sunday at around noon. It was a luxury to rest, no plane to catch, and then recover enough to have a
long afternoon to myself.

  I hadn’t talked about these things to Cordelia; didn’t feel like I could. “Hey, sorry you’re fighting for your life and we have so little time to see each other, but flying in every week is exhausting me. Can I take a break? Please don’t die while I’m not there.”

  The reprieve was seductive. A small voice saying there was little I could do when I was there.

  Except be with her and let her know I cared enough to get on the plane every week no matter how weary I was.

  Then a client wanted her runaway daughter escorted back to Boston and was willing to pay very well. Well enough that it would cover the bills for the rest of the month so I could have a respite from worrying about money as well. The catch was that I couldn’t fly back until Sunday so they could have time together before the husband flew off to Europe for business. He’d been delayed by Super Storm Sandy, so he needed to leave as soon as he could. To make up for it I’d fly out early Monday morning, spend the afternoon and the night in Houston, and fly home early Tuesday.

  I needed the money and I convinced myself that a second weekend that cut our time together would be okay. I had gone there twelve weekends in a row. It would be okay to skip one and shorten another. I would take a long weekend for the next one.

  I told Cordelia. She said little; she was tired and on painkillers. I felt guilty when I hung up, but I couldn’t do everything and be everywhere. We had to make choices. When this was over, I’d make it up to her. At least that’s what I told myself.

  So I flew to Boston, first class even, escorting a sixteen-year-old child who had run away because her parents were mean enough to ground her and make her study more after she flunked two subjects. I found out everything I needed and more than I wanted to know in the airport wait and flight to be assured that she was not returning to abusive parents—far from it. The optimistic view was that she was going through an overwrought period of adolescence; the more realistic, that she was a spoiled brat who didn’t think the world could tell her no.