RATH STEPPED ONTO the sidewalk outside the Dress Shoppe. Dark clouds skidded across the sun, and a north wind raked down the street, snapping flags in front of shops.
He crossed the street and stood where Mandy had stood, trying to get a feel for the location. He looked up to the top of the street.
The Church of Unity served as the village’s anchor at the head of Main Street, with its majestic spire. He walked up the street toward it, passing the firehouse and a fire engine parked at the curb, around which several young volunteer firemen stood bullshitting, nodding at Rath as he passed.
Rath stood across from the Church of Unity. A sign in front announced a Ham and Bean Supper Friday at 7 P.M. ALL SOULS WELCOME. Rath didn’t know what denomination Church of Unity was but guessed it was one of those that cast as wide a net as possible to keep the coffers full.
When Rath was ten, his mother had finally decided to divorce his father and confided in Father Morency, the priest who’d baptized, confirmed, and married her in the church where she’d worshipped each Sunday of her life. Father Morency had told her that marriage was a holy bond and to break it was a sin. She’d asked if serial adultery wasn’t a sin. Of course, but her husband had the devil in him, and only her love could help expel Satan. Divorce, however, had nothing to do with possession. It was human selfishness. The graver sin. She must forgive. Pray for her husband. It was her duty. When she’d gone forward with the divorce, Father Morency said he’d pray for her but she was no longer a welcome member of his flock.
Along the street, pedestrians scurried, heads bowed to the wind as they soldiered in and out of shops. Down the street, a similar unremarkable scene. Rath waited and watched. Who or what had Mandy seen? There was the head shop, A Kind Place, masquerading as a purveyor of tobacco pipes and products. Had she gone in there, or into another clothes shop? Had she seen a friend? Who had seen her? A nagging need to call Rachel struck him, as it did about once an hour. Most often he fought it, wanting to grant her the space she needed to live her new college life. He could resist no longer. He pulled out his cell phone. Two whole bars. Miracle of miracles. The phone vibrated in his hand, giving him a start. Laroche. Rath ignored it.
He dialed Rachel’s number and waited. Johnson State was tucked in the shadow of Mount Eden, and if two bars here in Canaan was a miracle, then a single bar on campus was The Second Coming: The faithful could hope for it, but not realistically expect any hard evidence. He knew Rachel checked messages and returned them when she was in Johnson Village.
Rath was kicked to voice mail and gladdened by the simple joy of hearing his daughter’s voice: “If it’s important enough to call, it’s important enough to leave a message. Sooo, go for it. Love yah. Mwaaah.”
“Hey, sweetie, it’s Dad. Calling to see how you are. And—” He paused at a jab of guilt. He had been about to tell her he had a question about an important case. But thought better of it. “I hope classes are OK. Give a call. Sometime. Miss you.”
He hit END and felt nostalgia creep into him for a time when 4 P.M. had meant Rachel would pop through the door after school to enliven the house with her enthusiastic spirit.
He didn’t have a question for Rachel about the case but knew if he had left a message saying he did, it would compel her to call. He’d done such things before and felt guilty for lying. Manipulative. He had trouble with lying. Like his father. Lying seemed so simple, even necessary, but it always led to unforeseen problems. Still, he wished he’d lied to get Rachel to call back, to hear her voice.
Since she’d been eleven years old, Rachel had assisted him on cases. At first, the simple, nonviolent cases: deadbeat dads, a town clerk embezzling $623. He’d given Rachel transcripts of interviews, phone bills, and e-mails to sift for connections and patterns. It had been something to share, and they’d work on building a case the way other families worked on jigsaw puzzles.
Even then, he’d involved her out of selfishness. When he’d felt he was losing his sunny and open daughter to a private, darker imposter, it had frightened him. So he’d lured her to the kitchen table by playing to her interest in mysteries and all things vaguely sinister. She was the kid who never covered her eyes at the scary part of a movie, but awaited it giddily. When her friends had gone through their Goosebumps and Harry Potter phases, she’d been into Gashlycrumb Tinies and the Complete Works of Poe.
At work on a case, she’d hunch over files with a Fluffernutter sandwich in hand, circle details with a red pencil, and dash off notes in the Moleskine she’d bought with birthday money. When Rath had ventured over to see how things were coming, she’d shielded her work like the smart kid warding off the dimwit during finals. “Dad. Please. I’ll report when I’m done.”
Then, late last spring, a disturbing turn had taken place. Rath had been vacuuming under Rachel’s bed when he’d knocked over a box of books with titles like Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, Blood Lust, Fiend, Houses of Death, Extreme Evil. Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters.
His heartbeat had slowed, and he’d sat on the edge of her bed, terrified.
He’d fired up her laptop and found her Netflix queue showed nothing but movies like Evil Inside Me, Black Soul, Carnage, Deranged. No comedies, no teen flicks, no TV shows. She’d watched fifty depraved B movies and had another fifty waiting.
When he’d told Rachel he’d discovered the books, she’d laughed, “Sick, right?”
Her reaction had worried him even more.
“They worry me,” he’d confessed, afraid he’d spook her away if he pressed too hard, the ice thin beneath him.
“They’re for a school report, Dad,” she’d said.
When he’d told her it was a lot of books for a report, she’d moaned, and insisted, “It’s my biggest paper. I need to investigate!”
They’d not spoken of it again.
But he wondered: As a baby, had she heard her parents’ murders? Her mother’s rape? What ungodly sounds had escaped Laura? What bloody, evil thumbprint might have been pressed into Rachel’s soul? What demonic sound track recorded in the coils of her brain? How else to explain her craving for such base filth?
He’d never told Rachel the truth about her parents. He’d told her they’d died in a car crash. What good would it have done for her to become The Girl Whose Parents Were Slaughtered? Here was the bottom line: If you were associated with a violent murder like Laura’s, you were stained by it. It was the most powerful lens, the only lens, through which people viewed you and through which you viewed the world. This was inalterable and absolute. This was violence’s reach, and he’d wanted to spare Rachel its alienating pain.
Her parents had been killed seventy miles south, nearly seventeen years ago, and none of her friends or friends’ parents knew. When he’d adopted her, he’d changed her surname to his, so there was no connection with her mother’s married name. The only people who knew were in the criminal-justice profession, and they knew better than to mention it to Rath. The past year, she’d asked about her mother more, and he’d lived in fear that her curiosity would lead her to the truth. At any moment, she could discover something online. What would it do to her, to them, to find out the truth, learn he’d lied? Was that why she wasn’t calling him back? She’d found out?
This was the trouble with lying: it bred paranoia.