Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) (29 page)

“What about the others?” I asked. “Do you recognize any of them?”

“Only one.” Mrs. Holland pulled a second photo from the pile. “Janet Harrington. She was a couple of years ahead of Eva and Cheryl. I knew the family because I used to baby sit for the younger brother. They moved away last year. The boy was a hellion, but Janet was so shy she wouldn’t look me in the eyes when she said hello.”

“This isn’t a recent picture, then?”

“No, I’d guess it was taken a couple of years ago.”

Sickened, I slipped the photos back into the envelope. I’ve looked through my share of girlie magazines, and while I wouldn’t pose for one myself, I don’t fault those women who do. But this was something altogether different.

These were girls. Maybe not children exactly, but not grown women either. Not in body; not in mind. Despite the provocative stances, there was an innocence about them, a wide-eyed vulnerability that made the pictures especially offensive.

I turned to Mrs. Holland. “Did Cheryl say anything to Eva about what was in the envelope?”

She shook her head. “Not that I’ve been able to determine. She just told Eva to keep it for her, that it was a secret, and that she’d be back for it soon. Would you like to speak with Eva yourself?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“She doesn’t know about the pictures. You’ll be careful what you say?”

I assured her I would, then followed her out back. A young girl sat on the grass, her head bent over a drawing board.

“Eva, honey, this is the lady I told you about. The one who’s a friend of Cheryl’s.”

Eva looked up and smiled shyly. She was like a storybook nymph, slight and fragile, with pale skin and fine wispy hair so blonde it was almost transparent.

“She wants to ask you a few questions, honey. You just answer the best you can.”

I sat down on the lawn opposite Eva. Mrs. Holland pulled an aluminum lawn chair over to the side and sat, too.

“You and Cheryl are pretty good friends, am I right?”

Eva nodded.

“Your mom told you that Cheryl left home without telling anyone where she was going?”

Eva nodded again.

“We were hoping you could help us find her.”

Eva looked over at her mother, then back down at the drawing board. “Is Cheryl going to get in trouble?”

“It depends. But I want to help her. So do others. We’re worried about what might happen to her while she’s away.” I too looked over at Mrs. Holland, and she gave me a reassuring nod.

“Sometimes when kids get angry or upset about something,” I continued, “running away seems like a good idea. But it’s hard to make it on your own. It can be dangerous as well. We want to find Cheryl before anything bad happens to her.”

I thought again of the photos, and wondered at the meaning of bad.

“Cheryl said there might be trouble.”

“Trouble how?”

Eva shook her head. “Trouble, that’s all I remember.”

“I know Cheryl asked you not to tell about the envelope she gave you. She may have asked you not to tell other things, too. Sometimes, though, we have to break promises in order to help our friends.”

From the next yard over came the squeals and laughter of children. I wondered if Eva was ever invited to play with them.

“It’s like when you’re in school,” I continued. “You aren’t supposed to speak out in the middle of class. The rule is you raise your hand and wait for the teacher to call on you. Right?”

Eva nodded.

“But if you saw that something dangerous was about to happen, a fire for instance, or something about to fall, it would be better to break the rule and yell out a warning, wouldn’t it?”

Another silent nod.

“It’s like that now, with Cheryl. It’s okay to tell us what you know, even if she told you not to. It’s a way to help her.”

Eva picked up a colored pencil and went back to her drawing. I wasn’t sure she’d understood what I was getting at.

“When she was here last Saturday, did Cheryl say anything to you about leaving or going away?”

Eva took her time erasing something in the corner of the page. “She had to leave to go home,” Eva said at last. “She couldn’t stay because she had to be there for the call.”

“The call?”

“The phone call.”

“Did she say who was calling her? Or what the call was about?”

Eva thought, then shook her head. “She had to be there, though. So he could tell her what to do.”

“So who could tell her?”

Eva looked at me and sighed. “I told you, I don’t know who.”

“Did Cheryl ever mention a Mr. Marrero?” At that point I didn’t know if I asking about George or Eddie, but I figured either one would be something.

“I’m not very good with names,” Eva said. “I have trouble remembering things.”

“How about teachers at school? Did she talk about them at all?”

“No, but they don't treat you like babies, Cheryl said. I wish I could have gone to Silver Creek, too.”

I offered a sympathetic smile. “About the envelope Cheryl gave you. Did she say where she got it, or what she was going to do with it?”

Eva’s face clouded over. “She’s going to be mad at me, I know. It was very, very important, she said. It proved she wasn’t stupid.” Once again, Eva looked at her mother. “Cheryl kept talking about how dumb she was, but she
isn’t
dumb. Cheryl is smart. I’m the one who’s dumb.”

Mrs. Holland gave her daughter a gentle smile. “You’re not dumb, honey. I’ve told you that. People are all different.”

“Then how come everybody
says
I’m dumb?” Without waiting for an answer, Eva threw down her drawing board and ran into the house.

I looked at the drawing, a unicorn in a field of brightly colored flowers. It was surprisingly good. “I’m sorry I upset her.”

Mrs. Holland shook her head. “It’s not you,” she murmured, her eyes following her daughter. Then she sighed deeply and turned her attention back to me. “So what do you think it all means?”

It was my turn to shake my head. It was obvious Eva didn’t know anything about the photographs or about why Cheryl had run away, but that was only one piece of the puzzle. There was also the connection between George and Carla, whatever it was, and the fact that Carla’s daughter, now missing, had been with Eddie only hours before his murder.

There were enough tie-ins there to make me think I was onto something, although none of the pieces fit the way I wanted them to. Especially the part about the photos. I didn’t want to believe that Eddie, with daughters of his own, could be part of anything so unsavory. Yet the pictures were in a school envelope, and Cheryl had given them to Eva right after meeting with Eddie.

Then too, there was the matter of the ten thousand which had mysteriously appeared in the Marrero’s checking account. Unsavory business was sometimes quite lucrative.

I continued to ponder the matter on the drive home. Short of confronting George or finding Cheryl, I couldn’t think of a thing I could to that would bring me any closer to the truth. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know the truth. Except, of course, that it might save Jannine.

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I spent the afternoon cleaning the large downstairs closet where my father had stashed everything from old linens to a broken toaster. Among the stash I found the silver-plated bread tray he and my mother won in a dancing contest. The tray had become something of a family joke almost immediately. Sabrina and I, always on diets, refused to eat bread. John, who ate a loaf a day, preferred it three slices at a time, straight from the plastic bag. But my mother had claimed, only half jokingly, that the bread tray was the most elegant gift she’d ever received. For a while there, it had adorned our dinner table every night, amid much light-hearted banter. It’s one of the last recollections I have of my mother. I wrapped the tray in tissue and set it aside.

By the time I’d finished packing everything away in boxes, dusk had fallen. My body ached, my mind was a muddle and my four-footed friend was getting impatient. I washed the grime from my hands and arms, changed shoes, and took Loretta for a stroll.

It was that time between sunset and nightfall, when the sky is a deep indigo, seeming to stretch on forever. A quarter moon hung on the horizon, and a single star flickered overhead.

Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight . . .

If only it were that easy.

I thought about George and Carla and Cheryl, and wished for answers. I thought about Jannine and Eddie, and wished there was some way to undo all that had happened. And when that didn’t get me anywhere, I thought about my own life, about where it was headed and where I wanted it to go. No shortage of wishes there either.

It wasn’t wishes that troubled me, however, so much as questions.

And they did nothing but lead me in circles.

I ambled along, my mind a hundred miles away. Which is why I didn’t see the car until it was almost on top of me.

It was coming from the opposite direction, on the same side of the street I was walking along. A large, light-colored model that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Its engine accelerated, then it swerved in my direction, heading off the pavement and onto the wide shoulder. The headlights flashed on, blinding me.

I froze.

The rest is a blur. Instinctively, I must have leapt out of the way, tripping over a fallen tree in the process. I tumbled onto the jagged rocks beyond the roadway. My shoulder and face hit first, bare flesh scraping against the hard, rough surface. My left leg twisted under me, and a searing flash of pain shot through my knee.

I heard a dull thud as the car collided with the stump of the tree. The impact was like a small earthquake. A cloud of dust rose up, stinging my eyes and filling my mouth and nose with grit.

For a moment, there was an eerie silence. Even the pine branches overhead, illuminated by the car’s headlights, were still. Then the car gunned its engine and shot backwards, momentarily spinning out in the soft dirt at the edge of the pavement before swinging onto the road.

I lay without moving while my heart dropped from my throat and my insides unscrambled. Finally, I began to test the extent of my injuries. I ran my tongue around my mouth. Although I could taste blood, my teeth appeared to be secure. I could move my fingers and toes, and recite the names of the last four presidents in reverse chronological order. My left eye was already beginning to swell, giving me a somewhat distorted angle of vision, and my knee throbbed, but as far as I could tell I was in one piece.

I was trying to garner the strength to move when I heard a soft whimper behind me.

Loretta. Had she been hurt ?

Twisting my head, I looked around, straining to see in the growing darkness. Nothing. And then I twisted the other way. Almost immediately, I met up with a cold, wet nose. It prodded and poked and then nuzzled against my neck. “Hello, girl,” I said, running a hand along her back and legs. Her tail thumped hard against my ribs.

I wrapped my arms around her plump, warm body and buried my face in her fur. For a long time, neither of us moved.

When I finally stood, my legs were weak and shaky. Nonetheless, I managed to limp home, taking frequent rests along the way. I made myself stop thinking about the pain, but I couldn’t make my mind stop reliving the incident.