She's Not There (17 page)

“Now, Fred, what say we start at the beginning. Which girl threw herself at you?”

Doris's back became straight again, ramrod straight. She let go of the chair and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked down at her husband. “There'd better be some explanation for what is going on here. A
very good
explanation. I demand to know the same thing this so-called police officer wants to know.
Who
threw herself at you?”

Fred looked up at her. He had the face of a dog who's been smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. He said, “A schoolteacher. At least that's what she said she was. Honey, I'm just a normal guy.” His gaze swiftly returned to the floor.

Fitzy held fast. “A schoolteacher threw herself at you?”

“Yes. She had on this little bikini … I couldn't help what happened. I told you, I'm just a normal guy.”

The vast majority of lawbreakers follow a pattern. First, they act shocked and appalled at an accusation, and when it dawns on them that you've got them, their faces collapse. They cry, not out of any feeling of repentance or remorse, but rather self-pity. And then, when no sympathy is forthcoming, no hope to wriggle out of their predicament, the last step is, of course, to blame the victim. In this case, a hypersexual schoolteacher in a bikini. And we hadn't even gotten to the actual victim, a teenage girl named Rachel Shaw.

Next round, Fred had to formulate a credible story. He needed time. He turned back to his wife and smiled sheepishly. “Listen, honey, I think all of us are going to need some coffee after all. Why don't you—”

“Don't you honey me, Frederick Prentiss! I make coffee for invited guests only. I am about to call my lawyer and have Joe Barnow and the officer and”—she looked specifically at me—“whoever
you
are, tossed out of my home.”

She picked up the receiver from the telephone on the table under the lamp. Fred grabbed it from her and whimpered, “Honey—Doris … see, me and the officer need to clear up a misunderstanding.” He hung up the phone gently. “We don't want to go making a mountain out of a molehill, do we?”

Doris's face turned red. Her cheeks puffed out. She said to her husband, “Do not
dare
to talk to me as if I'm one of your lowlife customers. Go right ahead and do as you please. Clear up this
misunderstanding
on your own. But you'll be digging your own grave, you fool!”

She went and sat on a little rocking chair in the corner that started to creak as she rocked violently back and forth.

“I only hope I don't hear what I think I'm going to hear.”

Fitzy said, “Lady, if you want to hear it, good. But just keep quiet and let your old man talk or I'm going to have to arrest him and hear what he has to say at my office in the State Police station.”

Fred gripped the ends of the chair arms again, this time to pull himself up. “Hey, Fitzy, how about a little belt first. I got some nice twelve-year-old Scotch in—”

Fitzy held up his hand, the traffic-cop gesture again. We all have to get our start somewhere. “Fred, don't move. Just tell me what you know about that dead girl halfway down Roadman Hollow.”

“Rodman's.”

“Whatever.”

Doris flew out of the rocking chair as if stung by a bee. She shouted, “Dead girl? There's another dead girl? Dear Lord!”

Fitzy said, “Try to calm yourself. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, trust me.”

But she just stood there, horrified.

Fred said, “I should have told you, Doris. I'm sorry. I was scared. I don't know anything at all about the dead girl. Like I told the officer, she was just lying there.”

“And what were you doing?” Fitzy asked him.

Fred looked at Doris. Then he shored himself up. He wanted to avoid having to answer that particular question, no matter what. “Listen, Fitzy, the only thing I did tonight is perform my civic duty as a good citizen. I found a body, and I called the police to report it just as soon as I could get to a phone.”

“Forgot to identify yourself, though, didn't you? That's part of a good citizen's civic duty. Could have saved yourself a headache. Lot of embarrassment, too, taking Doris over there into consideration. So tell me, what were you
doing
when you found the dead girl?”

Fred swallowed. “Fitzy, what say I just get a little drink for myself?”

“No. I have no intention of giving you time to use your imagination while you're having yourself a pop.”

Doris said, “Fred has no imagination.”

Fitzy turned to her. “Ya know, lady, you're a pip. I don't need any opinion on Fred's personality.” He glanced at his watch. “Fred, I want the truth and I want it by the time the little black hand on my watch gets to the twelve. That's less than thirty seconds. Go.”

Joe said quietly, “Are you going to read Fred his rights?”

First Fitzy said, “Hah!” Then: “I'm not arresting him. Not unless he forces me to take him to my headquarters, like I said. Fred and I are just havin' a friendly little chat, that's it.” He made a show of bringing the watch up to his eyes again, squinting. “Ten seconds left, Freddy old boy.”

Joe nudged my leg. He and Fitzy were on the same wavelength. Neither wanted Fred arrested. But Joe's words had brought a new look of panic to Fred's eyes. He said to Doris, “Listen, honey, I'm real sorry. I couldn't help it if—”

Fitzy shouted, “Goddamn it, Fred! You tell me what you saw and apologize to your wife later, or I will be readin' you your rights after all. Here in your freakin' living room!”

Fred cowered. He said, “Sorry, officer.” Then he cleared his throat. “All right.” He took a big breath. He took a second one. He surrendered. “See, Fitzy, this here schoolteacher picked me up tonight when I was coming in from doing a little fishing. Went out just after dinner. Heard the sandbar was squirmin' with flounder.”

“What time?”

“Around five-thirty.”

“Five-thirty? What the hell time do you eat dinner?”

“Five.”

“Jesus. Go ahead.”

“I came in from fishing—this was around eight—and it was almost dark and she was out there swimming in her little bikini and she … she picked me up.”

“Exactly where?”

“By the dock in the harbor.”

“She was swimming.”

“Yes.”

“When it was almost dark? By the
dock
? Great. Now let me be sure I've got this straight. We've got a schoolteacher who likes to swim around docks—at
night
—bumping into boats and breathing gas fumes. Schoolteachers pretty dumb these days, I take it?”

“I mean she'd
been
swimming. She—”

“Okay, she'd
been
swimming. And now you're going to tell me she was walking
on
the dock as opposed to swimming
around
the dock, right? In a little bikini.”

“Yes.”

“Kind of chilly at that hour.”

“Well, she wasn't exactly
wearing
the bikini, she was carrying it in a towel. Like I said, she'd been swimming and—”

“Fred?”

“What?”

“Tell me how this scenario grabs you. You were out lookin' for a little adventure, a little fun, and some horny schoolteacher with nothing better to do lets you pick her up.”

Fred didn't say anything. The only sound was Doris's breathing.

“Okay, Fred, we got that. Now tell me the rest of the story, and if you change a single detail I'm going to take out my weapon and
blow your freakin' head off.
”

Fred's face lost all its color. He said, “Okay, okay. This is what happened. This is the straight truth. This is it. The schoolteacher got in my truck and we went to have a little harmless … fun.”

“You didn't take her to a hotel.”

“No. I didn't want anyone to see us.”

“You did it in the
truck
?”

“No, we drove to Rodman's Hollow.”

“Fred, you're telling me this schoolteacher agreed to have sex in a swamp? Maybe schoolteachers
are
a lot dumber these days.”

“The Hollow isn't a swamp. And I have a big sleeping bag. I carried it down into the Hollow. We spread it out on a ledge.”

Doris made a small sound.

Fitzy said, “Don't stop now, Fred, whatever you do. Who saw the dead girl first?”

“What?”

“Who saw the body first, you or the schoolteacher?”

“Uh … the schoolteacher. She screamed.”

“Then you saw the body?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“Do? I ran. I got the hell out of there.” He looked up at Doris. “See, honey? We didn't even get to … we never had the chance…”

Fitzy said, “Still counts, Fred. Tough. Work it out with Doris later. So didn't you first try to see if you could do something for the girl?”

“Do something? The girl was dead. Real dead. Never saw anyone so dead in my life. If she was alive, she could have been in a freak show. Don't know how she got to be so discombobulated.”

“And what about the schoolteacher?”

“She ran too.”

“Did you touch the body?”

“Are you kidding? At first, I wasn't even sure it
was
a body. At first I thought I was just seeing a head. Like a dummy's head. I was lying two or three feet away. Then I saw the rest of her. All I knew was, I wanted out of there.”

“That's when you dropped the glasses.”

“Yeah. Musta been.”

“Okay, Fred, the name of the schoolteacher?”

“I never asked.”

“Not a local woman, I take it.”

Fred said to Doris, “That's something I'd never do to you, honey.”

Doris's lips had been pressed together. She unpressed them. “
You will pay for this, Fred Prentiss
. You'll soon find out what's it's like to live out on the sidewalk in a
cardboard box
.”

Fitzy said, “Fred, tell me where was this schoolteacher staying.”

“I don't know.”

Suddenly, Fitzy stood up. “Find out. Ask around. I ain't got the time to go checking every fleabag hotel on this blasted island. See me tomorrow by noon with the answer.” Fitzy came up from around the table and stood in the middle of the living room floor. “Now, Fred. I believe you. But I'm going to need all the information I can get. Whoever did to that girl whatever it was that killed her, he knew it would kill her. He knew it because he'd done it already. He murdered the first girl, and he murdered this one too. So we've got to find him before another innocent kid ends up dead at the bottom of Rodman's Hollow. Maybe the killer's real skinny. Maybe he hates fat people. Whatever. I want you to do some real thinking about that while you're finding out which hotel the schoolteacher's staying in. Get it?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

There was one question to be asked, and so I asked it. “Fred, did you see anyone on the road on your way to the Hollow? Or on the way back? A car you recognized? A truck?”

Doris answered me instead. “If he did see anyone, it wouldn't have been anyone he knew. People who live here are decent. We go to bed at a decent hour. Somebody from off the island is who you're looking for. Not one of us. Isn't that right, Joseph?”

Joe said, “I'm afraid I don't know, Doris.”

“Well, then, I'm surprised you don't.”

Fred looked at me. “Ma'am, there was nobody on the road to the Hollow. Not comin' or goin'.”

We left to the sound of children's footsteps scurrying back to their beds again.

In the ragtop, I said to Fitzy, “Did you really know those sunglasses were Fred's?”

“'Course not. Didn't you hear him? They're a dime a dozen.”

*   *   *

From Fred's, Fitzy said to go directly to the airstrip. Joe attempted to beg off but Fitzy told him he wouldn't be able to fit everyone in his car. He needed Joe's jeep too. We'd have to go up in two cars. So Joe agreed. Our timing was perfect. A small plane with
RHODE ISLAND STATE POLICE
printed on its side was just landing.

The commissioner had accompanied the team. His name was Robbie Brown. Fitzy formally introduced us, and while he exchanged a few “How are ya's” with the others, Commissioner Brown whispered to me, “Thank God you people are here. Fitzy's a good man.
Was
a good man. He's a friend of mine, besides. But—” He stopped and shrugged.

A state police commissioner is seldom a former cop. It's a political patronage job. But Commissioner Brown had indeed been a cop. Fitzy told us that on the way to the airstrip. There had been so much corruption in Rhode Island, a study of the State Police organization determined that an experienced and upstanding law officer needed to be in charge, even if he was expected to answer to the governor first and foremost. So ever since Robbie Brown was appointed, whenever there'd been a suspicious death, he took it upon himself to be a physical part of the investigative team. Fitzy said there were only about eight or nine homicides a year in Rhode Island. “Used to be fifty. Then the Mafia lost its grip on New England and we didn't have any more ginzos from one family whacking ginzos from another family.”

I had learned a new ethnic slur.

Robbie Brown talked about that same issue once Fitzy finished catching up with the team. He was a big man, and he threw his arm across Fitzy's shoulders. “Fitzy here is the reason the Mafia got cleaned out of Rhode Island. He was our bulldog, and it's nothing short of a miracle he's alive. He'll always be my main man.”

Fitzy said, “Yeah, right. Put me where I can't cause any trouble, and son-of-a-gun, now look what you've got.”