She's Not There (5 page)

So Joe and I did try to enjoy ourselves. For each other's sake we faked it, grabbed our gear, and were off. Our brains were in overdrive, though, back from mush state to normal. Halfway through our picnic we finally stopped commenting on the delicious sandwiches, the sweet breezes, the picturesque whitecaps and got down to talking business. Joe asked me a slew of questions: Were her eyes dilated? Did I see any tire tracks? Had I heard anything before finding her? Was she warm?

No
, to them all.

He asked, “How was the doc?”

“What do you mean, How was the doc?”

“Well, he had a breakdown a couple of years ago. I think he's addicted to Demerol. Carol takes care of him, though. I was worried that he—”

“Excuse me. Come again?”

“Carol is his nurse.”

“I wasn't talking about his nurse. You condone a practicing physician's addiction to
Demerol
? What do you call Demerol?”

“An analgesic. Sedative.”

“Derived from?”

A little pause. “Opium. But I can't prove he's an addict. He just has that look about him—slides in and out.”

Joe's paradise, it turned out, was protected by a chronic alcoholic, the people in paradise were attended by a lotus-eater, and it had an inn that looked out over the dump. I thought back to Coonymus Road. The doc had rubbed his forehead with his fingertips and taken a lot of deep breaths before he finally examined the body. I figured he was getting his own mushy brain cells into gear. But he'd been trying to drive his drug-induced tranquillity away.

I guess I got a little glum, because Joe suggested it was probably time to leave.

We drove back to the cottage, and while we packed our suitcases I went over and over with Joe what I'd seen and he began to get me spurred again, asking yet more questions. One of them was, “Did she die there? Or did she stagger along until—”

“No.”

“No?”

“Someone dumped her there. Stopped and pushed her out of a car, I'd say.”

“I don't understand.”

“Which part?”

“I mean, I'd imagined she was off to the side of the road. In the shrubs or something. Where she'd fallen walking back to camp.”

“No. She was out in the open. The perpetrator didn't have time to hide the body. Or else his plan to hide her was interrupted. She died somewhere else.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm answering your question.”

“We've been going under the notion that she'd died of a drug overdose.”

“Well, I think she did die of a drug overdose. But her clothes had been ripped off. So we have to consider—”

“
What?
”

“You didn't know that?”

“No, I didn't know that. Damn. These people go out of their way to shield me.”

“From what? You're an ATF officer. And why, even if you weren't?”

“Long story. She was raped, then?”

“I assume she was raped. And then her body was dumped in the middle of the road—”

“Poppy, if the body was moved, how in God's name is it that you're controlling the urge to go and find the actual crime scene? Jesus.”

Crime scene. If a rape was shown to have happened, there was a crime scene. If someone moves a dead body, it's a crime, and that makes for another crime scene. When a person dies of a drug overdose, the person who sold the drug committed a crime—and in some states they call it third-degree homicide, not negligent homicide. And another crime scene where the transaction took place. I surely did know all that. I said, “Because, Joe, I've been learning to follow the rules, that's how. Learning from you. Let Fitzy and his force find the scene of the crime. Maybe she wasn't raped. Maybe the Rhode Island State Police lab will explain what drug killed her and why her reaction to that drug was fatal. Then I won't have to help out that cop after all. I let him think I would. But it's supposed to be up to someone else, not me. I'm on
vacation
.”

Joe scratched Spike a little more vigorously. Joe had spent the last six months sympathizing with me for what had happened in my last active case, where I'd come very close to getting myself killed. At the same time he lectured me oh so benevolently as to why we can't ever ride over the regulations that direct our activities. Riding over regulations was the reason I was almost killed. He had felt paternal, full of advice. I'd let him go on and on with his gentle lectures. That's because I did need a rest, why I really gave in to the idea of a vacation. I needed to put everything on hold, regain my physical and psychic strength. I asked, “So how are
you
controlling the urge?”

“By trying to set an example.” Then he looked up from his cat, his face reflecting what he knew to be his utter foolishness. He said, “The problem is, I have obviously not been thinking straight. My advice was patronizing, not realistic. That's because I was so worried about you. Because, goddamn it, I love you, Poppy.”

I patted Joe's wrist. “Oh, you do not. You're only feeling crummy about what happened. And guilty because you believed you had all the facts when you had just a few of them. Guilty because the downside of this job is that we get too big for our britches. Those were the words my stepfather always used to warn me with—what's now called arrogance. So when you feel crummy and guilty, you need to offer love. But all the same, I appreciate the sentiment.”

He said, “Do you love me?”

I said, “Of course I do.”

“More than you love … say … your assistant, Delby? Or her three kids?”

“No.”

Joe has learned to steel himself to a lot of what I say concerning our relationship, what with having come to the accurate conclusion that I never mean to be hurtful—it's just that the truth hurts but the truth is not my fault.

He got up, Spike in the crook of his arm, and pulled over the other chaise. He stretched out on it and put Spike down on his stomach, and then Spike stretched out on him. Joe folded his arms behind his head and leaned back. He gazed out to sea. Sea-gazing and cat-petting. Besides serenity, those things also make you realize you're far too insignificant to get hung up over life's annoying little details. Like falling in love with someone who doesn't quite feel the same way you do. There are too many big things out there that need to be taken care of so you can't slop around in self-pity for very long. In Joe's case,
very long
meant ten seconds. I admired his distaste for dwelling on the unpleasant. Probably why I love him just as much as I love Delby. She doesn't dwell either.

He looked over at me. He smiled. “I love you when I'm not feeling crummy or guilty. Just please don't ever let my love for you spoil whatever the hell it is you and I have going.”

“Why would I do that?”

Then I got up, lifted the cat out of my way, set him down on the slate, and sprawled stomach down on top of my buddy, Joe Barnow. I said, “I don't purr, but I kiss better than he does.”

I kissed his chin, his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, his ears, his hair, and his beard, and when I got to his lips he was ready to kiss back.

When we were finished, we talked, becoming very serious, stuck in each other's arms and covered with each other's sweat. We agreed it was maybe best, maybe more realistic, to let the Rhode Island police take care of things. After all, would I get involved in the situation if I hadn't discovered the body? If I'd simply heard about it? Heard that some kid had OD'd? Joe and I decided Rhode Island could go through the appropriate channels if they needed the FBI to help. I said I would tell Fitzy I'd cut the red tape if his superiors felt they required assistance from the FBI. That's what I could do for him. Then Joe and I disentangled, got up, and debated which to do next—take a shower or polish off the rest of the food in the picnic hamper. We decided to eat, a mistake. Spike returned to the scene and came begging, rubbing against me, leaving a layer of cat hair in his wake.

*   *   *

The next morning, we were heading out the door for breakfast at a little coffee shop behind Willa's Grocery that Willa and her husband Ernie ran. We'd eat and then we'd stop and see Fitzy on the way to the airstrip, let him know we were going home early. But there was Fitzy's car just coming down the track.

He'd cleaned himself up.

Joe shook his hand. So did I, but he didn't look at me. Joe said to him, “Tough, Fitzy.”

“Tough is right. And I am fucking pissed off, I'll tell you that right now.”

“What's the matter?”

“Commissioner says we're going to treat this crime as an accidental drug overdose because the girl brought the drugs with her from Connecticut—girl was from Connecticut. Dana Ganzi. Seventeen years old. We'll let the Connecticut force worry about where she might have gotten her supply. I says to the Commish, Who decided she brought it with her? and he says, I did. Then he tells me the coroner determined right away she wasn't raped. I says, Then who the hell ripped her clothes off? He says, Probably she was in a hurry to go skinny-dippin' with a gang of riffraff and took 'em off herself. Jesus. So as far as lookin' around here for the shithead who sold her whatever it was killed her, he tells me I'm on my own. I says okay. So after I hung up with him I traced the girl's final movements. She hitchhiked from the camp. Last people to see her were at the Club Soda. She didn't know how to get back to camp because it was late and she was afraid to hitchhike at that hour, but no one offered her a ride. Told her to walk down to the harbor and see if there was a taxi still around. None of them saw her after she left the bar, and the taxi drivers didn't see her either. Somebody picked her up, though, obviously.”

Then he looked me directly in the eye. “How you feelin', FBI?”

I said, “I'm okay. Between Joe and me, once we get back to DC we'll find out what she took, and when we do we'll let you know.”

“I appreciate that. When're you leavin'?”

“Right after breakfast.”

He pressed his lips together. “Was hoping you'd be around awhile. Few things I'd like to—”

“I'll be more help to you in my office.”

“That so? Well, I'll be by my phone when I'm not questioning some more of the riffraff. Meanwhile, you might want to go back with me to the Pleasant View Inn. Someone told me a few of the camp girls went there for entertainment.”

I thought back. “Aggie mentioned that to me.”

“What do you say?”

Joe said it. “I think this is something you have to take care of, Fitzy. Poppy and I—”

But I had changed my mind. “Joe, I think I
would
like to go with Fitzy. Maybe this is an opportunity to clear things up right now. Get the whole thing over with. When we're finished, we can go have breakfast.”

Fitzy said, “There ya go, Joe. And if you want some extra company, I'll be ready for breakfast myself.”

Joe said, “Okay, you two go, then. I've got things to do here. I'll meet you in town.”

I said, “You don't want to go to the inn first?”

“I still have some flight stuff to fix so we can get going today. Let me work on that. Good luck.” He gave me a peck on the cheek and went back in the cottage.

Fitzy said, “I was really hoping he'd come. He knows everybody. That woman at the inn is going to be nervous around me.”

“Well, I had a cup of tea with her when I first got here. She'll be okay.”

But Fitzy was right. When he told Aggie why we were there, her response was, “Where's Joe?”

I said, “He wanted me to tell you he had some things to do.”

“He knows you're here, then?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come on in. I don't like this, though. Don't want my place to get a bad name.”

Behind her counter, just inside the door, there was a curtain. She led us through to her kitchen. We sat down at the kitchen table, and this time she didn't offer any tea.

Fitzy said, “I understand a couple of the girls from the camp came to visit guests here.”

“One guest. And one girl, matter of fact.”

“Was that same guest staying here yesterday? Day before?”

“He's here all week. Now, listen, this fellow is one of my regular customers. He's my only regular customer, if you want to know. Been comin' here for years. He's a loner. I'm always tellin' him he needs a girlfriend, but he tells me the girls won't look at him. 'Fraid he's right. He's one ugly fella. But he invited a camp girl here a couple of times. Figured she'd come because who else could he ask for a date? But it wasn't the dead girl who was layin' out there on the road yesterday. It was a different girl.”

Fitzy said, “I'd like to talk to him.”

Aggie looked to me. “Poppy, this guy stays here wouldn't hurt a fly.”

I said, “Aggie, maybe the person who sold or shared drugs with the dead girl wouldn't hurt a fly either. Officially, her death was accidental. But still, Fitzy has to make sure whoever has the drugs doesn't give them to anyone else. He just needs information. Maybe your guest knows something the police don't, even though he's an innocent bystander.”

She looked at her watch. “He should be wanderin' down any time. He fishes all day till around four. He takes a siesta; then he goes into town. Gets drunk. Comes back. He's got nothing to do with drugs.”

Fitzy said, “I'll bet he doesn't. I just want to talk to him.”

“Okay, then. Why don't I put on a fresh pot of tea?”

I said, “I could use a cup of tea. How about it, Fitzy?”

Fitzy said, “I've never tasted tea. Time I tried.”

Aggie plugged in a kettle. She took a tin down from a cupboard and spooned tea leaves into a silver ball on a chain that she put in an old ceramic teapot, after first warming the pot with hot water from the tap. We watched the entire ritual until she brought the pot to the table and set out cups and saucers. Then she got a quart of milk out of the refrigerator. She said, “Do you like it milky?”