Listen (13 page)

“She knows we’re having trouble. She’s very distant. Won’t talk to us much. I’m sure you can’t relate. Jenna is such a nice girl. I’m glad the girls are friends.”

Kay held back what seemed to be a natural response, that she could indeed relate to a daughter who had grown distant. But that might imply that she and Damien were having problems, and that was the last rumor she wanted to start.

“Kids are resilient” was all she could offer. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Another glance at her watch. Now Starbucks was out of the question. She loathed herself for even thinking it.

For the first time since she’d walked into the house, Jill seemed to be trying to compose herself. She avoided Kay’s gaze, stood, and feigned a smile as she stuffed the tissue back into her coat pocket. She turned and opened the front door, then walked out.

It caught Kay off guard. She stood at the doorway, watching the woman go, unsure why she suddenly left.

No, that wasn’t true. She knew.

She pulled her coat closed and rushed out the door. “Jill! Wait!”

Jill was unlocking her car door. She looked up.

“Please. Wait.” The cold air filled her lungs, and her breath froze in front of her. “I’m sorry. I . . . I sometimes don’t know what to say. You can ask my daughter.” She punctuated that statement with a sad smile. “How about some tea? I can fix us some tea.”

“Don’t you have some place to be?”

“I can make a quick phone call. Put it off for thirty minutes or so.”

For a moment, Jill looked indecisive, but then she walked toward the house. “I would appreciate it. Very much.”

***

The problem was that Damien didn’t have very many facts. The Web site provided no information about who was doing this. Besides what happened between the Caldwells and the Shaws, there was really nothing else there.

Edgar had twisted a paper clip—and his expression—out of form. “Underwood, you know what you do when you don’t have enough facts in a story? You go and get quotes from people who have strong opinions.”

Which was why Damien was now entering the police station at a little after ten in the morning. He checked in at the front desk and waited to see if the captain would come to the front.

Ten minutes passed, but finally Captain Grayson came through the door, looking irritated. He noticed Damien in the waiting room. “I thought that’s what the note said. Damien Underwood. Good to see you.” He held out a hand for Damien to shake, then gestured for him to follow. “I’m glad you’re here. Frank is out of control. Completely out of control. Can you talk some sense into him? Yeah, we all understood why the guy might’ve been crushed. High school’s hard enough and then you grow up and your wife leaves you for the principal. . . . What I’m trying to say is that we, and by we, I mean the department, have been extremely tolerant.”

“Well, the good news is he hasn’t done anything crazy like this in, what, three years?”

“I’ve had it up to here. Here.” He held a hand over his head as they rounded the corner into his bleak, white-walled office. “I’m assuming you heard he filed a missing person report on Angela?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes he disappears, Damien. Right in the middle of a shift. He’s probably a closet smoker. I don’t know. I’ve talked to him about it and sometimes it gets better, sometimes not.”

“What about lately? Has he been disappearing lately?”

“Lately he’s been making a rookie’s life miserable just for the fun of it. So you see what I’m dealing with here.” The captain plunged into his chair. “What can you do for me?” His expression filled with dread. “Or has Frank done something else? No, please. Please. Don’t tell me he’s done something else.”

Damien took a seat that wasn’t offered. The chair looked twenty years old, the vinyl ripped and repaired with duct tape. “I’m not here to talk about Frank.”

“You’re not?”

“No.”

“Sorry.” Grayson gave a vague smile. “It’s just that last time you were in my office, what, four years ago or so, Frank was freaking out and you’d come to talk through some things with me. Get him grounded again.”

“Please tell me Frank doesn’t know about that.”

“I never mentioned a word to him.”

“Yes, well, I probably overreacted. You and I have known each other for a long time. Our sons played T-ball together. That first year after Frank’s divorce, when he showed up on her doorstep on their anniversary, it startled me. Luckily he hasn’t made that a yearly tradition.” Damien grinned.

“So it hasn’t struck you that he’s acting strangely? I’m sensing some anger issues lately.”

Damien tried not to pause. “When is Frank not strange?”

Captain Grayson snorted. “You got that right. Love the man, but could kill him too, you know?” He leaned forward, his elbows against a few folders spread across his desk. “So what’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to talk to you about this Web site Listen to Yourself.” Damien pulled out a pen and a notepad from his briefcase and set them on the desk, then froze as he noticed the captain’s demeanor had shifted in less than a second. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s that for?”

“Oh, I can’t figure out how to use the recorder on my phone.”

“Put that away. Now.”

Damien quickly slipped them back into his briefcase. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended, but I don’t talk to the press.” Grayson studied him. “You’re not the press, are you? I mean, I know you work at the paper, but you’re not an actual reporter, right?”

“Believe it or not, I do fall under that category. Usually I do the editorial and opinion pieces.”

“Usually?”

“I’m trying my hand at investigative reporting.”

“Oh, brother,” Grayson said, falling back in his chair, looking like the words put him into permanent exhaustion. “I would’ve never let you through had I known that.”

“I only want to get a few quotes—”

“That’s the problem. You reporters just want a few quotes, and then you take what I say totally out of context and use it against me, the department.”

“Please give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“My lieutenants handle these sorts of things. I can get you in touch with whoever is on call to talk to the media.”

Damien tried an easy smile. “I just have a few simple questions. This Web site, I think it has the potential to cause a lot of trouble, and I’m wondering what the department is doing to investigate it.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“We’re off the record here, okay?”

Damien nodded.

“We don’t have enough resources to chase down something like this. We don’t have a cyber crime unit or anything of that nature here. It’s Marlo, for crying out loud. If we started with this Web site, who knows what else would happen. We’d have to start chasing down people who pirate movies.”

“But isn’t it illegal? I mean, it’s against the law to eavesdrop on people’s private conversations.”

“Yes, it is. Unless you’re doing a wiretap or something like that.”

“We’ve already seen what it’s done to neighbors.”

“That’s one instance.”

“I’ve heard of something else.”

The captain threw his hands up. “I don’t want to hear about it. Look, I think this is a perfect thing for you guys at the paper to go investigate. You like to stir up trouble and this is trouble. My preference would be to ignore it, and it’ll probably go away. But that’s just me. We’ve had no official complaints about the Web site, so I’m not pursuing any kind of investigation at this time.”

Damien blinked. The conversation he had with Frank the night before blazed through his mind, that the department
was
investigating. “You’re saying the department is
not
investigating it at all?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

He had just caught Frank in lie number two.

***

Gavin stood next to Frank on the front porch of the Shaws’ home, chewing a fingernail and staring at Frank.

“Stop looking at me,” Frank whispered. “Just play this cool. Do you even have that mode? Cool, collected, calm? Any of that ringing a bell with you? We’re the police. We’re not the ones who are supposed to be nervous.”

“We’re not supposed to be here,” Gavin said.

“Yes. Your expression is capturing that perfectly.” Frank pushed the doorbell again. “Don’t you have a pair of dark shades or something you can slide over those terrified eyeballs?”

“I don’t want to get caught.”

“Gavin, chill out. We’re not stealing secret documents here. We’re only doing some minor investigative work. It’s not sink or swim. It’s more like an arm floaties kind of situation.” Frank cut his gaze sideways to see if any of this was registering with the kid. Didn’t look like it. “And you can be thankful we’re not at Angela’s house.”

That seemed to bring fast relief. He smiled and nodded just as the door opened. Barely opened.

Peering through the tiny crack allowed by the chain lock, an eye blinked at them. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Shaw, Officer Merret here. I need to speak with you.”

“Why?”

“It’s about the incident.” That was vague enough.

The wide-eyed stare vanished into the darkness, and soon enough the door opened wider. She stood in what looked like pajamas, grasping the side of the door, unwilling to do much more than show her face. A dark purplish-green bruise peeked from beneath her bangs. “Yes? What is it?”

Frank carefully chose his words. He was crossing the line. Just barely. But crossing nevertheless. He had to be careful to not say he was representing the department. “This Web site that your conversation was posted on, how did it get there?”

“I told you, like I told my husband, I don’t know. I didn’t put it there. Is that what you think? That I put it there?” Her voice crawled with panic.

“No, no. I think someone else is doing it,” Frank said.

Gavin nodded.

Mrs. Shaw let go of the death grip she had on the doorframe. “I still don’t know if Tim believes me.”

“May we come in?”

She peered out a little and gave a long stare toward the Caldwells’ house across the street. “Okay, fine.”

Inside, the living room that was once very tidy looked messy. Mrs. Shaw quickly gathered up a few things so they had a place to sit. She dumped the pile into the corner. “I’m sorry for the mess. I’m still not feeling . . .” Her words trailed off.

“Is everything okay between you and your husband?”

“Yes. Thank you for asking.” Her words and tone were proper. “So what can I do for you?”

“As you probably know, your conversation is not the only one that has been recorded. Dozens are on there. We’re trying to figure out how this person is doing it. One theory is that he or she may have planted a listening device inside your home.”

Mrs. Shaw looked startled. “You mean, like a bug?”

“Yes. They can be very small and virtually undetectable.”

“But nobody’s really been to our house except friends and family.”

“No repair jobs? painting? Anybody like that?”

“No. Not that I can recall.”

“Do you remember where the conversation took place? the one that ended up on the Web site?”

“Right in here. By that window. Tim was angry. He was staring out the window at the Caldwells’. Standing right there.” Mrs. Shaw pointed to a spot near the center of the window.

“Gavin, get your flashlight, start looking under tables, lamps that sort of thing.”

Gavin started with the coffee table.

Mrs. Shaw watched, disbelief in her eyes. She shifted her focus back to Frank. “Tim’s a good man.”

“I’m sure you love him very much.”

“No, please, listen. That night . . . the night he said those things, he was angry. Do you understand that? He was saying those words to me. He was just venting. Nobody else was supposed to hear them. And when he found out they were on that Web site . . .”

“Yes, ma’am. I know. He lost his temper.”

“He would never intentionally harm me. You have to believe that.”

Frank gestured toward the TV. “Have you noticed any interference? any strange sounds coming from your electronic devices?”

“No,” Mrs. Shaw said, watching Gavin check their phone.

“Or while you’re on the phone, has it sounded funny?”

“No.”

Gavin turned off his flashlight and returned to the couch. “I can’t find anything out of the ordinary. I mean, besides this entire situation.”

Frank shot him a look. He quickly sat back down.

Mrs. Shaw gazed out the window again. “Are we going to be charged? for the cat incident?”

“It’s not up to us,” Frank said. “The reports have been turned over to the DA. He’ll make that decision.”

She sniffled and fingered the material of her pants. “One day everything is normal, you know? Everything is fine. And then it’s gone. Suddenly, like a blink of the eye, your life has changed forever.”

Frank noticed Gavin staring at him. Mrs. Shaw looked at him with an unusual expression too.

Frank stood, blowing out a hard sigh, shaking off the heaviness that suddenly engulfed him. “I know, Mrs. Shaw. I know exactly what you mean.”

14

“This is stupid! This is so stupid!”
Stomp, stomp, stomp
. “My father is a moron! You’re a moron, Father!”

Damien sat at the kitchen table, sipping orange juice as he listened to chaos erupt one story up.

Even Kay joined in. “Damien,” she hollered down the stairs, “what time is it? You didn’t give us enough time!”

Damien checked the kitchen clock. “You’re fine. You’ve got plenty of time.”

“I hate you for this!” Jenna continued. At age five, the word
hate
got her a time-out, and this kind of tantrum at eight would’ve gotten her grounded. But these days, it was a hopeful sign that her emotions were all still intact.

Hunter descended the stairs first, his feet dragging down each step as if someone had poured lead in his shoes.

“Looking nice, dude,” Damien said when he got to the bottom.