In the Drink (13 page)

Tiny seized the moment by gesturing toward a couple of empty chairs beside him. “Okay den,” he said. “Let's have a look at dis diary.”

Carter and Holly settled into the empty seats and Carter opened the envelope he had and took out a thick sheaf of papers. He divvied them up amongst all of us, handing each person two or three sheets.

Over the next hour or so we read all of the private, intimate details of Anna Hermann's life. Her writing was flowery and the early pages were a bit immature—understandable, given that she started the diary when she was just shy of twelve—but the words revealed a bright, optimistic personality, an above-average intelligence, and a good amount of social savviness. We skimmed through the first year and a half, where the entries were typical for a young girl. A few of the items were so personal and private they made us squirm: Anna's detailing of her first menstruation, the delight and anguish she felt over wearing her first bra, the excitement of her first kiss. But the vast majority of the entries were Anna's surprisingly astute and often humorous thoughts and analyses of the actions, behaviors, and motives she observed amongst her peers, all of whom other than Lori were referred to by initials rather than names. The girl had a wry and critical eye when it came to understanding how the various cliques, social mores, and peer pressures impacted her life and that of her friends. In general, her comments were merely observatory, though the girl definitely had a flair for the narrative. As I read through my portion of the diary entries, I became convinced that Anna had been a very old soul inside a young body.

Tiny's sister, Lori, featured prominently in the diary, particularly in the last year of the writings. The two girls had obviously been close, tight friends who spent a lot of time together and shared many of their innermost secrets. Through Anna's eyes and words we experienced Lori's first crush and first kiss with a boy named Brandon Schumacher. There were a number of other crushes that followed for both girls, but no more kisses appeared in the diary. It was hard to know if that was because they didn't happen, or because Anna didn't want to commit them to the page.

In the last entries, written during the month or so before the girls were killed, Anna wrote about her brother's interest in Lori. According to Anna, Erik spent six months wooing and flirting with Lori, determined to win her heart. But Lori kept insisting that the only feelings she had for him were brotherly in nature and not romantic.

At one point, Anna wrote that her brother's interest in Lori
borders on the obsessive,
and described how he constantly questioned Anna about Lori's activities—where she went, what she did, who she saw—and often spied on the two girls.

Anna mentioned how two girls with the initials D and B had harassed Lori, calling her names, spreading rumors about her, and leaving nasty notes on her locker, because D had a crush on Erik and was jealous of the attention he paid to Lori. It was classic, schoolgirl stuff, peppered with the high emotions and angst so common to teenaged girls.

In the very last entry in the diary, made the day before the girls disappeared, Anna made mention of the fight between Erik and Lori:

Based on what Anna wrote, it wasn't hard to see how Erik had become a suspect, but while it was possible to imagine him killing Lori in some failed attempt to seduce her, it was much harder to imagine him killing his little sister. Still, he seemed like a good place to start in the morning, if for no other reason than to get some insight into Anna's life in the days before the murders.

We chatted on for another hour or so about Anna's diary, offering up theories about what might have happened to the two girls. We quizzed Tiny on what he knew about Lori's activities during the days before and the day of the disappearance, but he didn't have much to offer. He knew the girls were supposed to meet up midday to go for a bike ride on the day they disappeared, but other than that, he didn't know much because he was already out on his own at that point, living in an apartment and working during the day. He apologized for not knowing more, stating that because of a ten-year spread in their ages he wasn't always up on his sister's day-to-day life at that point in time.

“All I know is what my parents were told,” he explained. “Da cops said dat da girls must have met up in dere secret spot in the park near the Little Menomonee River.” Everyone nodded. Anna had mentioned this secret spot in her diary, describing it in vague terms that mentioned a tree and a place where they would sit and talk about school, life, boys, and such. It was where the girls' bodies had been found and if anyone had known where it was, they might have been found sooner.

Throughout our discussion, the letter in my apartment kept intruding into my thoughts, making it hard for me to stay focused. I kept trying to shake it off, hoping I'd be able to put it aside long enough to give Tiny and his sister the attention they deserved. But it wasn't easy. And with every minute that ticked by, I found myself wondering who would be the next person to die.

As predicted, a couple of detectives showed up around seven-thirty asking to talk with me, my staff, and any customers who knew Lewis. I met them downstairs and talked to them at the bar, making no effort to hide my conversation. I was worried that the letter writer might jump to some wrong conclusions if I was seen talking to the cops and I wanted to make sure everything I did and said with them was up-front and public. I told them what I knew about Lewis, most of which was limited to what he liked to drink, how often he came into the bar, and his involvement with the Capone Club, including the names of other customers he'd had dealings with. It didn't take long—maybe fifteen minutes total—and when they finished with me I told them to feel free to talk to any of my staff as well as the Capone Club members. I instructed both Gary and Billy to help them out as much as possible.

With that out of the way, and knowing that the Capone Club group would be tied up for a while with the cops, I treated Mal to dinner from the bar. We ate upstairs in the privacy of my apartment, and throughout the meal we discussed and dissected the various suspects in the Gruber-Hermann case. When we were done, Mal headed downstairs and took a turn in my bar kitchen to whip up some homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert, which we shared with the staff. When closing time came around, I helped my staff with the cleanup and closure duties while Mal sat at the bar enjoying a nightcap. Debra kept giving me what I referred to as her wiggle-eyes, letting me know that she was excited for me and Mal. Once the last employee had left for the night, I checked my cell phone, wondering if I had somehow missed a call from Duncan, but there wasn't one.

Mal and I headed upstairs to my apartment and I showed him my Dad's bedroom. “You're more than welcome to sleep in here. I'm sure it will be more comfortable than the couch, and more private, too.”

“Thanks, but I don't want to intrude on your father's space. And I'm used to falling asleep with the TV on. Will it bother you if I sleep on the couch and leave the TV on with the volume on low?”

“Not at all. To be honest, my sleep is often noisy anyway because of my synesthesia.”

He cocked his head and gave me a curious look. “Interesting,” he said. “Your world must be a very colorful one.”

“Most of the time it is, though I do have some experiences that are literally black and white.”

I grabbed some sheets and blankets from the linen closet and made up the couch for him. But the only extra pillows I had were from my father's bed. When I went back into the bedroom and grabbed one of them, a faint smell wafted up to me, triggering a sensation that felt like a cozy blanket snugged around my shoulders. It overwhelmed me with a flood of unexpected emotion. I knew that sensation well; it was one I used to feel often when my father and I shared a special moment. It was triggered by his smell, a combination of the Old Spice aftershave he always used and the lingering citrus aroma that never seemed to leave his hands because of all the limes, lemons, and oranges he sliced up for drink garnishes. Tears burned at my eyes and my chest felt hollow and cold.

I didn't realize how long I was standing there until a shadow fell over the light coming in through the door to the room. It was Mal.

“Mack, are you all right?”

I nodded, my throat too tight with emotion to speak, the pillow clutched to my chest just beneath my chin.

Mal walked up to me, his eyes and expression sympathetic. “Memory slam?” he said, his voice soft.

I nodded. “I caught a whiff of him when I picked up the pillow.”

“Smells are the hardest,” he said in a wistful tone that told me he knew what I was feeling.

“You've lost someone close to you, too, haven't you?”

He nodded, a grim expression on his face. “I had a brother named Asher who died when he was eight and I was ten. I tried to save him and couldn't. I watched him die.”

He dropped onto the edge of my father's bed and I sat next to him, momentarily forgetting my own pain when I saw his in his eyes. “Tell me,” I said. And he did.

“We were on vacation in northern California,” he began, and I could tell from the faraway look in his eyes that he had mentally transported himself back in time. “My father has relatives who live in Big Sur, which is right along the coast, and on the day in question we went to the beach for a picnic. The coastline there is rocky with cliffs that jut out into the water and lots of hidden nooks and beaches. Asher and I loved to climb the rocks along the shore looking for fossils, driftwood, and tiny pools of stranded sea life. Our parents made it clear that we weren't allowed to go into the water because the area was known for having some fierce, unpredictable riptides and currents. Though we thought they were overreacting in typical parent fashion, we had always heeded their warning. But on this particular day, as we scrambled over some boulders at the end of a rocky outcropping that put us out of view of our parents, we came upon a small cove. And in the middle of that cove was a sea lion. It was a small one, a pup, and it appeared to be in distress. We waded into the water, at first only going in as far as our knees, and the creature swam closer to us, or rather it tried to. It couldn't swim very well and, as it drew near, we saw why. One of its flippers had a big chunk missing from it, either from a boat propeller, or maybe an orca. It looked at us with those dark, soulful eyes and let out an odd noise that sounded like a whimper or a baby's cry.

“I remember Asher saying, ‘He's hurt. We need to help him,' and at the time it seemed like the obvious, logical thing to do. I did think about our parents' warning, but I figured as long as we were standing in water that wasn't over our heads and not swimming where it was deeper, we'd be okay. The two of us slowly waded out into the water, moving a little closer to the injured animal with each step, and talking to it in an effort to reassure it. It was wary of us, but either the deeper waters scared it more than we did, or it started to trust us, because it kept doing that awkward wobbly swim in a circle that brought him a little closer to us with each lap. We were probably eight feet away when Asher just vanished. One minute he was standing right beside me and the next he was gone. I later found out that he had stepped into a hole created by the swirl of a rip current and by the time he surfaced again, he was ten feet past the sea lion, and moving out toward the open water. He hollered for help and I could see that he was floundering so I yelled to him to hang on and started swimming toward him as fast as I could. We were both strong swimmers, but no matter how fast I went, I couldn't close the gap. The current was dragging him out at a frighteningly rapid rate. He was trying desperately to swim toward me and the shore, but fighting that current exhausted him within minutes. Four times I saw him go under, though I wasn't sure if it was an intentional act on his part to try to swim out of the current, or if he was going under due to exhaustion. The fifth time he went under, he never came back up.”

The rate of his breathing had increased as he told the story until he was practically hyperventilating. I sat, mesmerized and horrified by his tale, my heart aching for him, knowing how the incident must have tormented him then, and likely still did. I put my father's pillow aside and reached over to lay my hand on top of his. My touch made him jerk, and when he looked at me I saw tears had welled in his eyes.

“I can still see that look on his face,” Mal said, his voice cracking. “That primal fear and dread. I was his big brother and I was supposed to protect him, but I didn't. I couldn't.”

“God, Mal, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I can't imagine . . .” I left it at that, truly unable to imagine the depth of his pain and anguish. He began to sob, softly at first, then hard, heaving sobs. I could tell there were years of pent-up emotion behind those tears, emotions that needed to be let out. I put my arms around his shoulders and just held him.

I'm not sure how what happened next transpired; when I try to remember, all I can recall is a blur of emotions, colors, tastes, and sensations. At some point, I realized Mal was kissing me. I liked it, and I kissed him back. One of his arms snaked around my waist and I could feel the heat building between us. Then Duncan popped into my thoughts like a jack-in-the-box, and it made me pull away.

“I'm sorry, Mack,” Mal said immediately. “I didn't mean to . . . you made it clear . . . Hell, I'm sorry.” He raked a hand through his hair. The heaving, gut-wrenching sobs were gone, but I could still see the fresh, wet tracks of tears on his face. I could taste those tears, and I wasn't sure if the taste was real or synesthetic.

“It's okay,” I whispered, laying a hand on his. “You hurt and you reached out. Sometimes we just need a warm body, someone who understands, to comfort us.”

I felt him shudder and then his sobs returned, quieter, less desperate, but still oozing with pain. I scooted closer to him and held him as he cried, gently rocking side to side. At some point we lay down on the bed. Neither of us removed our clothes, neither of us got under the covers. There was nothing overtly sexual about the situation at that point, and we stayed that way, spooned together, until we both fell asleep.

 

 

I awoke and found myself turned on my side facing a window that allowed bright sunlight to stream in and hit my eyes. It triggered a sensation like fingers walking gently over my face and slowly nudged me from my sleep. I glanced around, mildly confused as to where I was because I briefly saw an image of a large metal door, like on a vault, and beyond that a cozy room filled with warm light and a big overstuffed couch. The vault room image wavered slightly, telling me it was a synesthetic response, and I blinked it away. When I focused again, I recognized my father's bedroom, and it took me a second or two to remember how I'd ended up there. Slowly, the events of the night before came back to me. Behind me in the bed, I heard Mal's rhythmic, soft breathing and knew he was still asleep. The vault room image kept intruding, but it was gauzy and ephemeral, allowing me to see beyond it. I gently picked up the arm Mal had draped over my waist and eased it down onto the mattress between us. As soon as I did this, the vault room disappeared. I slid quietly out of bed and left the room.

It was just past eight-thirty in the morning, meaning we had slept only about five hours. Yet I felt oddly refreshed and energized. Perhaps the emotional purging had something to do with it.
Or perhaps Mal had something to do with it,
an inner voice said. I ignored it, locked the thought away, and busied myself making coffee and breakfast. After starting the coffee, I checked my cell phone and plugged it in to charge it up. That's when I saw that Duncan had called at a little after three-thirty in the morning, right around the time Mal and I were cuddling on my father's bed. I felt a surge of guilt and quickly pushed it aside. I messaged Duncan with an apology for missing his call, excusing myself with a simple I was tired, and a request to call me when he could, preferably before ten.

With that out of the way, I went back to fixing breakfast. Mal appeared, all sleepy-eyed, bed-headed, and boyish-looking, some twenty minutes later.

“Good morning,” I said. “I hope you like eggs and bacon.”

“I love anything someone else cooks for me,” he said with a smile.

“Help yourself to the coffee. The mugs are in the cabinet above the coffeemaker.”

For the next half hour, we ate, drank, and chatted about the weather, the upcoming Christmas holiday, and about our plans for the day, beginning with our visit to Erik Hermann's house. No mention of last night was made by either of us. After breakfast, I told Mal he could use the shower in the small bathroom off my father's room while I used the main bathroom. By nine-thirty, the two of us were clean, fed, and ready to roll.

I grabbed my cell phone and saw that Duncan had called while I was in the shower. I checked for a message, but there wasn't one. I cursed his timing and shoved the phone into my pocket, planning to call him back as soon as we were under way.

It was Sunday and the bar wouldn't open until five, so the downstairs was deserted when we left. Once again Mal wanted to drive, and as soon as we were settled in his car I called Duncan back.

“Finally,” he said when he answered. “I was starting to feel like the grand loser in this game of phone tag.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Bad timing.”
Quite the understatement
.

“What are you up to?”

I told him that Mal and I were headed for Erik Hermann's house and why, and then I gave him a brief synopsis of what we'd read in Anna's diary. Then I told him how Tyrese was planning to take us to the correctional facility in Waupun so we could talk to Lonnie Carlisle. “After that, if I have enough time, I might try to chat with one of the other suspects this evening, though I'd rather spend the time taking another look at that last letter, to see if anything occurs to me. Did you come up with any ideas about it?”

“I did not.”

“I'm scared, Duncan. What if we're missing something crucial? What if it results in someone else ending up dead?”

“It may happen, Mack,” Duncan admitted. “But you can't blame yourself if it does. It wouldn't be your fault. It's the fault of this crazed nut-job who's sending the letters.”

“That's all fine and good until someone else ends up dead. You know as well as I do that it isn't that easy to separate yourself from the blame.” As soon as I was done uttering the words, I realized how relevant they were to what Mal had shared with me last night. I glanced over at him, but he looked focused on his driving, and if what I had said bothered him in any way, I couldn't tell.