Dark Lie (9781101607084) (10 page)

“Goddamn tight-ass slut! Take it off!” He tried to hit Juliet in the face. She jerked sideward away from Him, and His knuckles angled off her cheek.

She said quite calmly, “No.”

Oh, God, if He drew that knife—

But He cursed her briefly, then put the van in gear. He said, “You know it's coming off once we get out of here.” A pit bull could not have sounded more threatening. He backed up to turn the van around and drove out of the parking lot.

* * *

Sam tried phoning his in-laws one more time.

“What do you mean calling so late, Sam?” the old man complained. “We were sleeping.”

Only manners drilled in bone deep kept Sam from demanding how they could go to sleep when their daughter was missing. Instead, he blurted like a child, “Dorrie's still not back.”

“Not where she belongs? Then she's gone to the devil again. We'll pray for her. Good night.”

“No, wait! Don't hang up.” Sam took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. “Do you happen to have a recent photograph of her?” He knew the chances were remote. His in-laws, who felt to him more like out-laws, were no more camera-prone than he was.

“No reason why we should,” Father Birch said. “After what she brought upon herself, we did our duty for her and not a bit more. Good—”

“Don't hang up! Please, I don't understand. Why do you say such things about Dorrie? What has she ever done that is so unforgivable?”

Silence except for the whispering of the telephone wire.

Sam tried again. “Father Birch, I really, really need to know. What happened in Appletree?”

“We don't talk about that.” The old man's tone sounded frostily final. “Not to anyone. Now, I want to get some sleep. Good—”

Sam demanded, “Did it have anything to do with Don Phillips? The district attorney?”

“I told you, we don't talk about it!” The old man slammed the phone down. Sam stood for a moment listening to the whispers in the phone line and in his mind.

“Huh,” he muttered, replacing the receiver quite gently in its cradle.

After a moment's thought, he picked up the phone again and called Pastor Lewinski.

He answered on the second ring, “Hello, can I help you?” as cordially as if he had not just been awakened from righteous slumber.

“It's Sam White again,” Sam said perhaps unnecessarily, but then again, perhaps the bedroom phone was old and lacked caller ID.

Lewinski didn't miss a beat. “Dorrie's still not home?”

“No. I managed to get the police to take an interest, and they want a recent photo of her, but I, um, I don't have any.” Sam was going to explain how Dorrie treated cameras on a duck-and-cover basis, but apparently Lewinski needed no explanation.

“We'll find one,” he declared. “Meet me at the church office, okay?”

“Um, okay.” Sam hung up, feeling a bit dazed. He was used to telling his employees what to do, unaccustomed to being a follower, but he needed leadership right now, and he accepted it.

Habitually thrifty, Sam started to turn off the lights before leaving, but then he changed his mind and kept them all on, just about every light in the house, sending up a mute prayer for Dorrie to come home.

Backing the pickup out of the driveway, Sam acknowledged himself to be tired. Very tired and upset. He hadn't been this upset in many years, since the day his sister had taken a bad fall off a horse and everybody had thought she was going to be paralyzed. Now she was fine, of course, and living in Paris, France. Happy ending. With that in mind, Sam ordered himself to pay conscious attention to his driving. It wouldn't help Dorrie any if he got in an accident.

He took the short drive slowly to find that Pastor Lewinski had reached the church before him. The light through the office windows felt like a warm embrace to Sam, making him fervidly hope Lewinski wouldn't actually try to hug him; Sam felt afraid he might break down, embarrassing himself.

Being on emotional edge prevented him from saying anything as he walked in. Even if he could have talked about what was on his mind, it would have been no use to ask Lewinski whether he knew what had happened to Dorrie and her parents in Appletree; the pastor didn't go back that far. He'd come to this pulpit a few years ago straight out of seminary. Sitting at the computer in his pajamas and slippers, his red hair wildly disheveled, bringing up a screen of photos, Lewinski looked like a teenager. To Sam's relief, he didn't even glance up, just waved, then gestured toward a nearby chair. “I'm trying the most recent covered-dish supper first,” he said, intent on Photoshop, “and right there with you in the food line, confronted by a dozen kinds of macaroni and cheese, is your lovely wife. Now if I can just get her facing the camera . . . okay, there's one. There's another.”

As Sam watched with more anxiety than interest, Lewinski clicked the mouse on several photos, selected “Edit” from a menu, then started cropping and enlarging the modified images until several reasonably helpful photos of Dorrie emerged, some of just her face but some also showing her distinctive figure and dress style. In none of them was she aware of the camera. Most of them caught her either talking or eating. To Sam she looked wonderful in all of them.

As Lewinski printed them out on card stock, he ventured, “I suppose you spoke with Dorrie's parents.”

“Yes,” said Sam, at the same time shaking his head as if he hadn't. Or wished he hadn't. He blurted, “They complained because I called after bedtime and woke them up.”

“Ow. Ouch,” said the pastor softly. “Really?”

“Yes, really. When their daughter is missing. I—I don't understand them.”

“Neither do I,” admitted Lewinski, handing Sam the improvised photos and waving his thanks away. “Usually I can manage insight into people whether they're pleasant or not, but—this has to stay between you and me, Sam—Dorrie's parents baffle me.”

The earnest young man made Sam smile despite the weight on his heart. “That makes two of us. Maybe three, counting Dorrie.”

“I hope you find her soon. Sam, do you want me to pray with you?”

Sam definitely did not. “I know you mean well, Pastor, but—”

“Not a problem. I want to help, not intrude. Would you like me to come with you to the police station?”

Sam's smile widened a little. “Pastor, I like your pajamas.” They were tropical blue with little white sailboats all over them. “Did someone give them to you?”

“Yes. My mother.” Pastor Lewinski returned Sam's smile ruefully, accepting the unspoken hint that he'd better go home and go back to bed. He and Sam shook hands.

“I can't thank you enough.” Sam felt himself choking up just because someone was willing to help him.

“Not a big deal. Please call me if you need me or just want to talk. Anytime, night or day.” He shook Sam's hand again and let him go.

Walking to his Silverado alone, photos of Dorrie in hand, Sam assumed at first that he was on his way to the police station. Then he thought of what might be a better plan.

Sam White did not like to jump into things. Settling into the driver's seat, he gave his mind a minute to change. It didn't. His second thoughts remained the same as his first.

“Okay,” he said aloud as he revved the pickup. “I know who else isn't sleeping tonight.”

* * *

It might have been more courteous to make the initial contact via telephone, but Sam decided against it. From his experience of the past several hours he could imagine how the Phillipses felt every time the phone rang, and he didn't want to add to their misery. Anyway, this can of worms, snakes, anacondas, whatever it might turn out to be, required face-to-face. He didn't know the exact address, but figured that once he reached the neighborhood, it wouldn't be hard to find. Just look for cop cars.

Again, Sam reminded himself that he was tired and distraught and needed to drive carefully.

Several cautious moments later, steering his truck into Plover Heights, Sam realized truly how badly he was functioning. If he'd been able to think, he'd have remembered that Plover Heights (actually neither higher nor lower than anywhere else in Fulcrum) was one of those gated communities. Now, facing the man at the guardhouse, he felt dumb, inane, desperate just for being there at this uncivilized hour.

Habitual politeness kept his voice level. “I need to visit the Phillips residence.”

The guard's nonexpression hardened slightly. “They are accepting no visitors.”

“But it's important. It might have something to do with the disappearance of their daughter.”

The man frankly scowled. “Your name?”

“Sam White.”

So the Phillipses ended up getting a phone call anyway, while Sam waited at the gate.

It took quite a while, and he did not even think to turn off the truck to save gas. It was still idling when a police cruiser appeared out of Plover Heights and pulled up nose to nose with him. A cop got out, the same skinny baby-faced black policewoman he'd spoken with earlier—what was her name? Officer Chappell.

She looked at him through the windshield, nodded, and came around to his window to talk with him. “They sent me to verify your identity,” she explained. “You'd be amazed what news reporters will say trying to get in. Why don't you park here and come with me.”

He handed over the computer-printout photographs of Dorrie first. Officer Chappell accepted them as if it was only natural that he should be able to procure pictures of his wife. Somehow her attitude seemed surreal.

Everything felt surreal. Sitting in the back of Officer Chappell's cruiser, Sam felt his sense of reality bowing under the weight of recent events. He knew he wasn't a criminal, but he felt he had been captured and taken for a ride and he didn't know where he was going. Trying to remember that this visit was his idea, he asked Officer Chappell, “Do you have that pink book with you?”

“Yes. I mean, it's at the Phillips residence.”

“You showed it to them?”

“Yes.”

“And?” Sam leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of the young woman's face.

No answer. Quietly the cruiser slipped between large homes set on large lots with much landscaping and security lighting.

Sam spelled it out. “What did they say? Do they know of some connection between their daughter and my wife?”

“I can't divulge that, sir.” The baby-faced policewoman pulled the cruiser to the side of the street, stopped there, and shut down the engine. “Perhaps they'd care to tell you themselves. I don't know.” She got out of the car.

Sam followed, at first not understanding; why hadn't they parked in a driveway? Oh. Because there was no room for another car. The Phillips house would be the one with the U-shaped drive packed with Beemers and Mercedes-Benzes and police cruisers.

Sam tried not to contrast this scene too resentfully with his own empty driveway. His missing wife was an adult who might have gone someplace of her own free will, whereas the district attorney's missing daughter was a minor who had been reported abducted, her vehicle left behind in the mall parking lot. Naturally more attention was being paid to her case.

Lights blazed outdoors and inside, beating back the night. Sam walked as if in daylight under a portico to the front door, automatically observing its bevel glass inserts, its fanlight, noting that the Phillipses' money had been invested not just in real estate but in elegance. His escort did not knock or ring a doorbell, but simply opened the door and walked in. Sam followed, realizing that he was expected.

Very much so. Every head turned as he followed the young policewoman into a large family room; Sam felt multiple stares upon him. Trying not to stare back, he glimpsed several kinds of uniformed authorities, and some men and women who might be servants, and others who might be family members on standby.

Again, Sam tried not to compare this scene with his own empty living room. If he had called his parents, they would be on their way this minute, rushing from Colorado to be with him. It was his own doing that he had decided not to call them until morning, to let them sleep. Lord willing, Dorrie would come home before—

Hope hurt almost worse than doubt. Sam quashed the thought and made himself focus on the people he had driven over here to talk with. They were not hard to spot: a middle-aged couple sitting close together on a camelback sofa. Sam recognized the man's face from news photos. And he recognized the pink scrapbook lying open in the woman's lap.

Sam strode over to them. The man, Don Phillips, stood up and extended his hand, scanning Sam with a quiet, serious look.
Giving me the once-over,
Sam thought, making his own assessment of the other while they shook hands. He liked this man's firm grip and steady eyes. The district attorney was making him feel as if they were colleagues in a very serious case. Which, in a way, they were.

“I'm Don Phillips,” the big man introduced himself humbly but unnecessarily, “and this is my wife, Pearl.”

Sam turned to Mrs. Phillips and offered his hand. But instead of shaking it, she reached up from where she sat and clasped his hand in both of hers. Sam saw tears in her eyes.

“This was made with love,” she said, releasing his hand to gesture at the pink scrapbook in her lap. “It was put together with so much love and care. If my daughter is with your wife, she's in very loving hands. I feel absolutely certain of that.”

It took Sam's breath away, the way the woman spoke straight to the emotional heart of the matter, brushing aside preliminaries and practicalities. Dorrie did that sometimes, and it always had the same effect on him. He stood speechless.

“Mr. White, won't you sit down?” Pearl Phillips's voice, heavily burdened, nevertheless held steady. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Sam had never drunk coffee in his life. Having been raised Church of Latter-Day Saints, he still avoided caffeine in any form. But he heard himself saying, “Yes, thank you. I'd like that very much.”