The Abortionist's Daughter (17 page)

“But maybe I can find out who stole the camera! Maybe I can track it down!”

Megan regretted coming up here and involving Bill in this fiasco. There was no point in pursuing it. What did it matter who sold them? The damage was done. The pictures were out there. Her father had seen them. Her mother was dead. What good would it do, to spend her time and energy on finding a guy who made a little money off a few pictures?

She ignored his pleas and walked down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the cold. As she drove west, she made a plan. First off, she had to get back to town and find another hotel to stay in until the dorms opened back up, because she wasn’t spending one more night with her father. Not that she suddenly thought him capable of—just because he grabbed her didn’t mean—stupid—jumping to conclusions—more like because he had seen those pictures—awful pictures—how could she look him in the eye—

She turned south onto the interstate and got the car up to seventy miles an hour and drove with the windows wide open. Her plan was taking shape. After finding a hotel, she would go to the police. She would make sure they knew about the pictures, so they would understand why her father had been so angry. She would remind them that Eve Kelly lived thirty miles away. And then?

Well, what then?

And the nagging little voice, sensing an opportunity, shuffled right up to her ear. She was forgetting something, wasn’t she, it reminded her. Where had her father gone that night? Why wouldn’t he account for himself between the hours of five and eight? What was he hiding?

Objectively, anything was possible.

The thought had a smell, like fetid fur. Once thought, it would not go away, and Megan felt raw. But if her father’s only story was that he was out for a walk in the middle of a blizzard for three hours, then fine. When you’ve dealt with your mother’s murder—well, it was like the voice said. Anything was possible.

CHAPTER NINE

——————

AT SIX-THIRTY
the next morning Huck was at his kitchen table, on hold with the phone company. Actually he was using his cell phone to make the call, the regular phone company having cut off service for unpaid bills, and this irritated him no end, because his cell phone was too small to wedge against his ear even if he cricked his neck real hard, which left him with just one hand to go through the stack of mail on his kitchen table and see what other bills he’d missed.

He was grouchy, admittedly. Carolyn was still in Minnesota, driving her mother back and forth to rehab every day because her sister who lived only ten minutes away just had to go and get the shingles. Carolyn’s words, not his, although he shared her frustration, since it meant that here he was, right smack in the middle of another very public investigation and having to take care of her cats and go over every day to water the plants and retrieve the mail, all the while wondering why the friendly father/ex-husband couldn’t himself fly out and take care of the mother/ex-wife instead of everything falling on Carolyn’s shoulders.

Your call will be answered in approximately . . . five . . . minutes,
a voice told him. He switched ears. The excess heat in the house had forced him to crack the kitchen window, which helped, but he couldn’t stop feeling like he was in some kind of funhouse, with random pockets of hot and cold air assaulting him right and left. He was about to go open another window when the doorbell rang.

He padded out to the foyer and opened the door. There on his front step, of all people, stood Megan Thompson. She was dressed in a puffy down jacket, bouncing at the knees to keep warm as she focused intently on her feet. Her hair glistened in long inky loops. At the sound of the door opening, she jumped a little, as though surprised to see him.

“Oh! You’re here! Can I come in?”

His first thought was to call Ernie. It was protocol, but besides that, for reasons he did not want to articulate—even to himself—he was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of being alone with Megan Thompson in an overheated house at seven o’clock on a cold snowy morning.

“Megan,” he said calmly, “what are you doing here?”

She tipped her head and violently batted the mass of curls. “I knew you’d ask that. Can I come in?”

“I don’t think—”

“Look, I’m freezing. I just spent the night in my car. I have no place to go right now and my toes are frostbitten and if this is against some rules fine but please,” she said, “please let me come in. And then I’ll go. I promise.”

Huck glanced up the driveway. There was her car, parked crookedly. He pulled the door shut and turned around to find that she had already gone into the kitchen.

“Look,” Huck said, following her, “if you’re going to come in, I’m going to have to call—hey, go ahead, sit right down.”

Sitting she was already, if you could call it that, the way she slouched back in the chair with her legs splayed boyishly ahead. Huck felt a light sweat break out on his neck. He picked up his phone.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Don’t call anyone!”

“I have to.”

“Just wait! Just hear me out! I won’t stay long, I promise.”

“If you’ve got something to tell me, tell me now, because really,” he said, “you shouldn’t be here, and if you
are
going to be here, I need to get somebody else over here.”

“I do have something to say,” said Megan, taking off her shoes. “I tried calling Eve Kelly and guess what? Her phone’s been disconnected.”

This did not surprise Huck. Eve Kelly had not been pleased to receive a visit from Huck and Ernie last week, and her beatific demeanor had switched to hostility when she realized what they wanted. However, she informed them that she’d been at the restaurant where she worked that Tuesday evening in December, and her employer’s records had corroborated her claim.

Huck didn’t go into the details with Megan, but he assured her that Eve’s disconnected phone was not a problem for the case. Casting him a skeptical look, Megan sat up and pulled off her socks. Her toes were pink and blotchy, and she cupped them in her hands and kneaded them briskly. Again Huck reached for the phone.

“Please,” she said, “just hold on a sec. I just want to ask you something, and I don’t want a lot of people around right now.”

“Quickly, Megan.”

Megan glared at him. “Why are you just focusing on my father?”

Huck sighed inwardly. This had happened before, family members taking it upon themselves to solve a case. “Megan,” he said, “I think you better leave things to the police.”

“Well, you’re going down the wrong road. Barking up the wrong tree. Have you gone through the Home Tour logs?”

“We have,” Huck said.

“Have you talked to Steven O’Connell?”

“We have.”

“You’re lying,” she said. “Steven O’Connell is out of town.”

His neck warmed. “You really shouldn’t be here,” he told her. “Here. Have some coffee. Warm yourself up, and then go home.”

“I have no home,” she reminded him.

“I mean your hotel.”

“I have no hotel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Megan took the coffee and blew on it. “Don’t ask,” she said wearily, in a way that seemed to cut off everything.

Huck straightened up. You’re a cop, be a cop, he thought. He picked up the phone, then remembered with irritation that he had no phone service. He picked up his cell phone and found that the battery was dead. For Pete’s sake.

“Megan, it’s just not right for someone in your position to show up on my doorstep at seven a.m.,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I know that! But I—” She paused long enough for Huck to think she’d lost her train of thought. Then she got a schoolmarmy look on her face.

“Do you know why my father was so upset that night? Well, I’ll tell you why. There’s this Web site. There are some pictures. Pictures of me,” she added.

Huck cleared his throat. “We know about the pictures.”

Megan didn’t flinch. “Oh.”

“We’ve known about them for some time.”

Megan nodded and blew on her coffee. “How’d you find out about them?”

“Never mind. I don’t mean that rudely,” he added. “But—”

“Fine. Fine!” she exclaimed, and he looked away, wondering what exactly one should say in a situation like this. Suddenly all his experience as an officer of the law seemed to vanish, and he had not only the terrible feeling of losing control but the wholly unexpected fear that Carolyn was trying to reach him and he was going to sound guilty as all get-out for no reason at all when he tried to explain how both phones were dead.

So that when Megan broke the silence, he found himself envious of her social grace.

“But if you know why my father was upset,” she said, “then why are you still focusing on him? It doesn’t make sense. Why would he take it out on my mother? I’m just throwing this out as an idea. That’s all it is. It’s just an idea here. But it seems to me that if he was upset about some pictures, he’d go and take it out on the person who took the pictures.”

“And who was that?”

Megan cupped the mug to her chin.

“It would help if we knew,” said Huck.

The heater fan stopped blowing, and again the house rang with silence. Finally she said, “It was my boyfriend. My ex.”

“Who’s that?”

“Does it matter?”

Huck figured he could get the name later. “When did he take them?”

“A couple of years ago. Look, it was a dumb thing to do. I thought I deleted them all, and then we broke up and then apparently his camera got stolen.” The color rose in her face. “Is there
anyone
at the police department who hasn’t seen them?”

Huck didn’t want to answer that question. Most people at the department were professional about these things, as the chief had ordered, but there were always a couple of bozos who had to go and make wisecracks when no superiors were around.

“So everyone’s seen them?”

“Not everyone.”

She smiled wanly. He plugged his cell phone into the charger on the wall by the table. “How about a ride somewhere now?” he asked.

She smoothed out the ruffles on Carolyn’s placemat. “No,” she said. “My car’s fine. I didn’t know you were married,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You’ve got a girlfriend, though.”

“I do,” he allowed.

“I’m sorry if I woke her.”

“She doesn’t live here.”

“Why not?”

Huck was not used to people asking questions like this, and he had the uneasy feeling that if he were to leave the room for a moment, this woman, this girl, would manage to find out his bank balance, his medical history, and more. He noticed the reminder postcard from his dentist lying on the counter and slipped it into the silverware drawer.

“Usually I ask the questions,” he said gruffly. “Look, finish your coffee. I’ll give you a ride over to the station. We can talk more there.”

“I don’t want to go to the station,” said Megan. “If you catch my drift.”

“Why can’t you go back to your hotel?”

“I moved out,” she said crossly.

“Why?”

“I felt like it! God, I’m nineteen—do I have to stay cooped up in a hotel with my father day and night?”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’ll find my own hotel room. Or I can stay with friends. I’ll figure something out.”

Huck handed her the Yellow Pages. Suddenly very businesslike, she used his cell phone to make a series of calls, ultimately booking a room at a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town. And although it seemed like a sad solution for her to move into a Motel 6, Huck was extremely relieved to have the matter resolved.

Then he noticed Megan staring forlornly at the floor.

“What’s the matter now?” he demanded.

“Can’t I just go back to our house? I won’t touch anything.”

Huck marveled at her naÏveté. He shook his head. “Can’t you find anything other than a Motel Six?”

“Well, there’s the Sheraton with all the reporters. And there are a few bed and breakfasts. Cozy and intimate is not exactly what I’m looking for, though.”

“Why don’t you just go back to your hotel with your father, then? What’s the problem?”

“I don’t feel like being with my father right now, okay? I’ve been spending a lot of time with him and I’ve gotten kind of tired of him, to be quite honest; do you get it or is that something a cop doesn’t quite understand?”

It seemed to Huck that there was a lot of conflict going on inside this girl’s head, for which he couldn’t blame her. Protective of her father one minute, angry the next—it made sense, given the circumstances, but that didn’t make him an expert on father-daughter relations. Suddenly he felt his stomach begin to knot up, the way it did just before he gave a speech.

“How about this,” Megan said. “How about if I stay here.”

“Here?”

“Just until the dorms open.”

His heart began to pound. “Out of the question.”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa,” she said. “What, you think people will think we’re sleeping together?” Her tone was both defiant and sarcastic, but suddenly her face went blank. Then she gave a sharp little laugh.

“Of course they’d think that, wouldn’t they?” she said. “A girl who’d pose for pictures would sleep with anybody.”

Huck unwittingly took offense at this.

“Well, you know what?” she went on. “I say fuck ’em. Look, I just need a place to stay. I refuse to go to a Motel Six. I’m so tired,” she sighed.

Huck’s mind raced as he mentally skimmed through the Code of Conduct. Internal Affairs would have a field day.

Megan, however, didn’t wait for an answer. She wandered into the living room, where she glanced around, taking in the blank walls and the curtainless windows. Huck wished he’d taken the time to hang the framed Monet poster Carolyn had given him last fall. There it sat, leaning against the wall. Megan sat down on the sofa. She bounced a few times, then knotted her hair into a loopy red tie and lay down. Huck was too stunned to react.

“I was up all
night.
” She yawned, snuggling into herself. “That fucking Bill. He won’t let up. Did you ever have that, someone who just won’t let you alone? It’s like you’re always waiting for the bomb to drop. I wish he’d just fire a gun so you could lock him up. Shit,” and her voice began to drop off. “I have so much reading to do. How am I ever going to focus?”