Dancer's Rain Page 7

  They’d been staring at her too.

  12

  Frank had barely settled behind his desk when Kelly Randall knocked on the door and came in. It wasn’t unexpected—he’d passed her as he walked through to his office and from the way she looked up he got the impression she’d been waiting for him. She slumped into the chair across from his desk and looked over at him with something in her eyes approaching hatred. When she finally spoke it looked like she was making an effort to keep her voice under control.

  “We got an ID,” she told him. Frank looked at her, surprised. It had only been a couple of weeks since they found the girl’s body. The canvassers—Raycroft, Wheelock, and Randall herself—had come up with nothing since. Frank had met with them twice—once after he’d assigned Randall, to make sure Raycroft and Wheelock understood that she was part of their team, not just someone to dump paperwork on, and again a few days later to make sure that they were actually functioning as they should. The second meeting had been brief because there was nothing to report—not because the three of them hadn’t covered their bases, but because there was nothing there. Frank had come to the conclusion that it had all been a matter of timing, that the girl was hitchhiking through, probably late at night, and she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had only fragments of forensic evidence to work with, not even the vaguest hint of a suspect, and no matches at all had come up in the various databases. They were going nowhere and they all knew it. Frank left it with them and then went to Pittsburgh for a couple of days on a seminar, a poorly disguised excuse to get away from things. He hadn’t been out of town in six months—but from the look on Randall’s face that didn’t matter.

  “How’d you manage that?” Frank asked her.

  “I didn’t manage a damn thing,” Randall told him, “her parents did. They’ve been looking for her for a long time,” her voice trailed off, “Now they’ve found her.”

  There’d been a succession of people who’d come in since the news of the girl had gotten out, and for the most part Frank had left them to Randall. She’d demonstrated a gift for dealing with them, just the right balance of empathy and professionalism—at least, Frank thought, he’d gotten that part right when he put her on the team.

  “They recognized her watch,” Randall said. For a moment Frank thought she might cry, “her frigging watch.”

  “There wasn’t any engraving on it—”

  “And what she was wearing. Good enough for me—I didn’t want them to see her.”

  “No,” Frank sighed, “Where are they now?”

  She looked up at him, angry.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with it. We sent them home.”

  “Where was Brent during all this?” he asked.

  “He was there afterward,” she said, “I let him know as soon as we had the identification and we both talked to them. They were both in really bad shape but we got a statement,” she waved vaguely at Frank’s inbox, “it’s in there somewhere, we figured you might want to look at it sometime,” the sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable, “It didn’t make much sense, but we got one.”

  Randall stood up abruptly and looked down at him. She was struggling.

  “That wasn’t fair, Chief. I wasn’t ready for this—”

  She turned away from him and walked out fast, as if she was afraid she might say something else.

  The weather was still freakishly warm for fall, and Emily decided to take advantage of it. Her mother had gone for a run, and Emily decided to wash the car, another step in a carefully planned campaign to drive the thing once in a while—not that there was any particular place to go. She sighed and decided to kill two birds with one stone, get some sun at the same time.

  She changed first, putting on an old flannel shirt over a bikini top and cutoffs, then looked under the sink in the kitchen, found a bucket and a sponge, got some detergent out of the laundry room and went outside. It was even warmer than she thought it would be.

  The car wasn’t even that dirty. At least it didn’t look dirty to her. She knew what she saw and what her mother saw were two different things. There were brownie points here if she did things right. The hose was coiled neatly around the faucet at the side of the house. The car may not have been dirty but the hose was, tiny bits of gravel and dirt still embedded in it from being dragged across the driveway the last time her mom had washed the car. She smiled to herself, thinking she could scold her mother for leaving the hose in that condition, mimic the criticisms her mother sometimes directed at her. Might defeat the purpose, though.

  She grimaced as she unwound the hose, holding it away from her to keep it away from her bare legs, then went back and struggled with the metal knob to turn it on. Finally she got it and the hose jumped with the sudden surge of water, convulsing the hose and upending the bucket. It skittered along the driveway and came to rest against the rocker panel of the car. Emily swore and went over to control the nozzle, then retrieved the bucket. She held onto it this time and hurried to put some detergent in the bucket before it filled up. A little too much water and a lot too much detergent...her wrist hurt and she put the bucket down, holding the hose well away from her with the other hand.

  Even so she was getting soaked. She unbuttoned the heavy shirt and pulled it away with her free hand, stubbornly holding onto the hose with the other. Then she switched hands and shrugged the shirt away, tossing it onto the step of the side door. She soaked the sponge in the soapy water, wincing at how cold it was, and when she turned back to the car she saw an old pickup truck idling in the street, two grinning faces staring at her, the passenger leaning forward and across the driver. Both men were rough looking, unshaven. The driver turned away briefly and said something to the passenger, then turned back, snickering. She decided to ignore them and kept her eyes down as she went back to the bucket and leaned over to pick it up, move it closer to the car. She heard a loud, mocking groan from the truck and then more laughter. She thought of going back inside the house but decided she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Then she heard the sound of the truck’s doors opening and closing. One of the men called something out to her as they approached. She couldn’t make out what it was but she recognized the tone.

  Frank had made a dent in the paperwork on his desk and decided to get out of the office for a while. He was, basically, just driving around, although as he turned the corner at Fremont and started down the street he chided himself for driving this way more often than he needed to. He was driving his own vehicle, unmarked, and in the back of his mind he had to acknowledge that he was taking advantage of its anonymity, that consciously or unconsciously there was an element of premeditation in what he was doing. He didn’t need to be here.

  Fact was this Adrienne woman had made an impression on him, and today was as close as he’d come to admitting it. Stupid, and potentially embarrassing. Zero crime area and no excuse to be rolling slowly through her neighborhood. What if she happened to be outside pruning her rosebushes or something? Stop and say hello? Drive by, looking purposeful and manly as he served and protected, and pretend he didn’t see her? High school stuff. She didn’t look like the gardening type anyway...

  There were two men slowly crossing the street. It was a long way off but they appeared to be in the vicinity of the Simmonds house. Frank instinctively slowed down. It looked like they were calling to somebody...great. She’d be out there talking to two workmen—that’s what they looked like, although he couldn’t recognize them from here—she’d be talking to them, facing the street, and then see Frank trolling the neighborhood like a lovesick teenager. All of this went through his mind in a heartbeat and then he was rolling by, in spite of himself hooking a quick glance into the driveway.

  He was expecting to see Adrienne Simmonds and for a moment that’s who he thought it was. By then he was past, realizing that something about the whole tableau looked wrong. Frank had only stolen a quick glance at the woman in the driveway, but it was long enough fo
r him to recognize the younger one, Adrienne’s daughter. She was wearing only a bikini top and cutoffs and it looked like she’d been washing a car. The attention of the men had been so riveted on her they hadn’t even glanced at Frank as he rolled by, and there was a vibe about the whole thing that he didn’t like. There was something insolent, even menacing, in the way they were approaching her. They were walking fanned out, a few paces apart. Both of them were well into their thirties, in Frank’s mind anyway far too old to be friends.

  He made up his mind and pulled into a driveway a few houses down. He backed out slowly, reminding himself to take it easy in case he’d misread the situation and was about to make a complete idiot of himself. Still possible they were cousins or contractors or something. In this part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily exempt her from harassment.

  They still didn’t look back when Frank rolled up the second time. By now they were hovering close to her, one on each side. From the expression on her face she didn’t want them there. Everyone’s body language was wrong. A garden hose hung limply in her hand, still spewing water.

  Frank stopped just past the driveway and got out just as she jerked the nozzle of the hose up and let the nearest one have the water full in the face.

  That did it. The guy recoiled a couple of feet and she turned the water on his buddy. That gave the first one a bit of recovery time, but by then Frank had covered the few yards remaining to spin him around and slam him hard into the side of her car. His buddy made a grab for Frank’s arm but the girl whipped him hard across the side of the head with the hose nozzle, then hit him again with it as he staggered.

  The first guy rebounded off her car with a wild haymaker. Frank tried to duck but didn’t make it all the way, the man’s fist glancing off Frank’s left ear on the way by. Frank hit him hard in the midsection, twice. He went back against the car, buckling at the waist. Water sprayed everywhere. The other one grabbed Frank from behind. Frank stomped hard on his instep, then felt his grip slacken.

  Frank whirled around. The girl had the hose looped around the man’s neck and was pulling hard. His hands were groping for the hose, trying to pull it away from his windpipe. It was too good a setup to miss. Frank went for the guy’s chin with a short right, snapping his head to one side, careful not to hit the girl. Frank brought his arm back and hit him again. The man staggered and went down, the girl losing her grip on the hose and stumbling backwards. The nozzle of the hose swung around and sprayed Frank in the face. The girl laughed.

  “You don’t seem too concerned about all this.”

  Adrienne Simmonds set a cup of coffee down in front of Frank. Her daughter came to his defence.

  “He beat the crap out of them, Mom.”

  Aw shucks.

  “Not exactly. Your daughter helped.”

  Frank had been lucky and he knew it. After the smoke had cleared—and the water had stopped spraying around—he’d finally recognized the two boneheads. Both from just outside the town limits, doing whatever it took to make a living, mostly in the woods. Watts and Dunning, both names disproportionately common in the area they’d come from. The town theory for that was inbreeding. Based on what he’d just seen Frank couldn’t dispute it.

  Regardless of that they were both very, very tough hombres, with the kind of muscle you could only get if you’d done manual labor all your life. Work muscles beat gym muscles every time. Two on one, without the distraction of the girl and the belated realization that Frank was a cop—he’d finally gotten around to badging them—it could have gone the other way in a hurry. In his haste to get them away from the girl he’d made a rookie mistake—he hadn’t identified himself as a cop right away. Their backs had been turned to him and that, he knew, was probably going to get them off. He realized that Adrienne was still talking to him.

  “What kind of place is this, anyway?”

  Adrienne sat down at the kitchen table, setting a glass of orange juice in front of her daughter. The coffee in her own cup was black too, “Anything could have happened.”

  Frank nearly used that as a cue to point out that her daughter’s choice of attire probably had a lot to do with provoking the encounter in the first place. He knew that kind of observation was impolitic these days, and it would be especially so with someone like Adrienne Simmonds. He decided to drink his coffee and keep his mouth shut.

  The truth was he was having a hard time deciding where to look. He knew he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Instead of just throwing the two morons in his car he’d called the station and had a car pick them up. His motives in doing that didn’t bear close examination, but at least so far neither Adrienne Simmonds or her daughter had thought to ask how the hell he’d happened to be on their street.

  “What are you going to do with them?” Adrienne asked.

  “Not sure yet,” he told her.

  “They attacked my daughter,” she snapped.

  “No ma’am,” he winced inwardly at the ‘ma’am’. She didn’t seem to notice, “not technically.”

  “But they were just about to,” Emily said.

  She’d reminded him of her name, sticking out a hand and introducing herself again just after Brent and Raycroft had bundled the two mopes into the cruiser, Brent craning his neck and giving him an odd look as they drove away.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they were just going to ask directions.”

  “That’s just a lie!” Emily protested.

  He held up a placating hand.

  “Yes it is—but that’ll be their story.”

  Emily was outraged. Her mother was very still, but no less angry for that. It came off her in waves. When she did speak her voice was very quiet, as if she knew the answer already.

  “But...they were resisting arrest, weren’t they?” her eyes were on him, grey like smoke, unblinking. He wanted to look away from her when he answered but he couldn’t escape her eyes.

  “I came up behind them—they didn’t know who I was. Not at first,” he took a deep breath and decided to be straight with them, “I should have identified myself as a police officer right away. I was in a hurry and I didn’t do it.”

  She looked at him for a long moment.

  “So they’re going to get away with it.”

  “Chances are. You can push it if you want to, and I’ll do everything I can to help you in that. But I don’t want to raise your expectations.”

  The look she gave him told him her expectations were pretty low to begin with. She started to say something, then pursed her lips and got up, tossing the remnants of her coffee into the sink. Frank realized he was still watching her. He turned away, catching a bemused smile playing at the corners of Emily’s mouth. Time to leave.

  He mumbled something about going back to work and got up. He was surprised when Emily stood up too, hugged him.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding the hug long enough to show she meant it.

  “Yes,” Adrienne kept her distance, “thank you.”

  Both women walked him to the door. Adrienne seemed to realize she’d been a little perfunctory and shook his hand. Her hand was dry but warm. Probably from the coffee cup, Frank thought.

  “I really appreciate what you did. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if you hadn’t been there.”

  Frank was embarrassed. He knew why he’d been there. He tried to lighten things a little.

  “I think they may have been the ones who needed rescuing. Your daughter’s a real wildcat.”

  Emily smiled at him, looking him straight in the eyes.

  “You have no idea.”

  13

  Adrienne watched the ridge as she walked to her car. The school parking lot was nearly empty. Last one out—or nearly so. Some of her fellow teachers had already remarked on that, their tone suggesting that they didn’t like it, an overt sign of diligence, the Tall Poppy syndrome. How they knew she usually stayed late—after all, they were already gone at that point—unsettled her. It suggested she was
being tracked, evaluated.

  She unlocked the car from a few yards away and got in quickly, locking it again as soon as she settled behind the wheel. The haste was a hangover from her previous life, a mix of normal urban caution and a horrendous breakup from her first relationship after the divorce. She’d felt self-conscious about it after she’d first arrived, but since the news about the missing girl had come out the self-consciousness had disappeared. Now it was just common sense, small town or not. She’d belabored the point with Emily, told her to be careful, but knew better than to think it would have much of an impact. Certainly none of the few people in town she had contact with—almost all of them other teachers—seemed particularly concerned. If it hadn’t happened to somebody local it just hadn’t happened.

  Adrienne didn’t know any more if she’d done the right thing. She was tired. Standing in that classroom was like standing in front of twenty-eight unresponsive walls. Their horizons were so low. She knew that by coming here she’d lowered her own as well—and Emily’s. The news about what had happened to the girl—she’d read in the paper only that foul play was ‘strongly suspected’—had shown just how misguided her plan to get away from the supposed evils of a large city had been.

  Emily was already home when she got there, probably on the phone until she heard her mother’s car pull in. Too many long distance calls, and it was getting expensive.

  Adrienne couldn’t bring herself to say much about that—she suspected that Emily was probably going through something very similar to what she herself was. If it made her feel better to keep some connection with home—Adrienne still thought of it that way herself—it was probably money well spent.

  She looked at her daughter and felt a familiar twinge. Beautiful, and casually oblivious to the effect it had on everyone around her. When Adrienne looked at Emily she knew she was looking at herself at the same age. Adrienne, like most beautiful women, had been the object of innumerable stammering approaches by various men since her mid teens. She knew it probably wasn’t any different for Emily.