The Dead Place (23 page)

It took Kate exactly twelve minutes to drive to the police station. A record time accomplished by rolling through stop signs and running lights so red that they’d forgotten yellow existed. Still, it was too slow. Every moment since she’d opened the letter was slow.

She had to concentrate to park the car, so anxious to get into the station that she almost left the Volvo running out front. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror as she backed into a parking space, and didn’t recognize the wild-eyed woman.

The key stuck in the ignition the way it always did. She had to jiggle to get it loose. “C’mon, c’mon.” Her hands shook as she locked the car, pent-up adrenaline that she let loose by running the half block back to the station and up the concrete steps two at a time.

The desk sergeant’s bald head crinkled as his eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised to see you, Mrs. Corbin.”

“I need to see Detective Barnaby.”

“I’m afraid he’s not available. What’s this about, Mrs. Corbin?”

“Then Detective Stilton.” But the sergeant was already shaking his head.

“Sorry, ma’am, but they’re both busy. If you’ll just tell me what this is about.”

“My daughter. It’s about my daughter.”

“That’ll be Officer Dombroski you want to talk to, then.” His large fingers pushed the buttons on the phone even as she protested.

The wait for Officer Dombroski was four excruciating minutes. Kate sat on the bench like last time, couldn’t stand it, and paced instead. The sergeant watched her from hooded eyes, taking swigs from a can of diet Cherry Coke he’d secreted under the counter.

The young officer who’d taken the missing persons report showed up with a willing smile, but looking distracted.

“Have you heard from your daughter, Mrs. Corbin?”

“No, from her kidnapper.”

That got attention. Suddenly the desk sergeant was back on the phone calling the detectives who hadn’t been available just minutes before.

Dombroski looked at the letter that Kate thrust out, but didn’t touch it. The frown looked funny on her young face, incongruous with her freckles. She escorted Kate through the station, where it looked as if everyone had vanished. A half-eaten sandwich swaddled in greasy paper sat on one desk; partially filled out forms splayed across the surface of another.

Why became clear as Kate followed Dombroski to the back of the squad room. There were uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives, every one with visible guns strapped to the waist or hanging from shoulder holsters, spilling out the door of a large room.

“Hey, Dombroski.” A young patrolman wearing too much aftershave glanced their way and stepped out of the door. “You hear they found the Hirsh photo?”

“Yeah, I heard.” Dombroski barely glanced at him, but Kate slowed. Hirsh photo? “Did they find a photo of Elizabeth Hirsh?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the case with you, ma’am.”

Kate was shown into a room with a plain table and chairs that looked like the twin of the one where she’d been held after her arrest, though the big industrial clock hung on a different wall.

Officer Dombroski took a seat across from her, and Kate thrust the letter and necklace across the table. “This came in today’s mail.”

The policewoman used a pen to hold the note flat without touching it. She read it through in silence and Kate grew impatient.

“He’s taken her. The same person who killed Lily Slocum.”

The police officer had no expression on her face. She drew the necklace to her with the tip of the pen. “This belongs to your daughter?”

“Yes, yes—it’s Grace’s necklace. We gave it to her as a gift for her tenth birthday. She never takes it off.”

The officer looked at Kate and back down at the necklace. Her slowness infuriated Kate. “This is a waste of time! Shouldn’t you be putting this out on the radio? Can’t you do something more? What about calling the F.B.I.?”

“When did you say you received this, Mrs. Corbin?”

“Today.” Kate looked up at the clock. “Thirty-three minutes ago to be precise.” Her leg jigged, and Kate pressed one sweaty palm against it to force it to stop.

Officer Dombroski got up from the table and Kate sprang to her feet. “We need to find the person who saw her last,” she said. “I didn’t have much luck the other day, but I’m not the police.”

Dombroski held out a hand. “Just wait here, Mrs. Corbin. You need to talk with the other detectives.”

“But time is passing! She could be hurt—please.”

“I know, Mrs. Corbin.” The younger woman gave her an understanding smile. “It’ll just be a minute.”

It was more than five minutes. Kate watched them tick by as she paced the room. Ten footsteps one way, ten the other. Back and forth. They’d found a photo of Elizabeth Hirsh. That could only mean one thing: Elizabeth Hirsh was dead.

Kate pressed a hand against her mouth forcing back bile. She pressed her hands hard against one wall, feeling the coldness of the concrete press into her palms, and ducked her head, trying to breathe. Images played in her mind—Elizabeth’s smiling young face in the paper, and Grace playing the piano, her smooth fingers flying over the keys. Grace as she’d looked the last time Kate saw her, turning at the door, giving that little half wave. The covered stretcher with Lily Slocum’s body and the river running behind it, dark and wild.

Kate moaned and pressed a hand against her stomach. Jesus, this monster had taken Grace and it was her fault! If she hadn’t seen the first photo, if she hadn’t spied on Terrence Simnic, if she’d hadn’t gone looking for more evidence. Dear God, please, not her child!

It was important not to panic. Panicking wouldn’t help Grace. She had to think, and she couldn’t think if she panicked. Kate tried to be rational. Where could he have gotten Grace? Somewhere between school and home. It had to be. Unless she’d cut school again. That was a possibility. Someone had to have seen her, but no one had. She was the new kid, the quiet kid, the kid who could slip in and out unnoticed. That’s how she was able to skip school.

Kate paced again. She was in the middle of her fourteenth lap when the door opened. It was Detective Stilton; his face still looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

“Mrs. Corbin.” He nodded at her, glancing at the wristwatch on his arm and comparing it to the clock on the wall while his other hand jangled something in the pocket of his gray slacks.

She kept her voice steady. “Detective.”

He walked over to the table and leaned on it to look down at the note and the necklace. His shirtsleeves were rolled back and she could see tendons knotted in his wiry forearms. “Officer Dombroski says you received these today?”

Jesus, how often was she going to have to repeat this? She sat back down at the table, willed herself to sound calm. “Yes, in today’s mail. Forty-five minutes ago.”

“Has anyone else seen them?”

“What? No. No one. I brought it straight here.”

He nodded, but whether in acknowledgment or approval she couldn’t tell. Her leg jigged again, a rhythmic bobbing that this time she didn’t bother to suppress.

“Where did you find the photo of Elizabeth Hirsh?” she asked.

He seemed surprised by the question, but it was hard to tell in that face. “At the library.”

“Is it the same as Lily Slocum’s?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s the same photographer.”

“Mrs. Corbin, I cannot discuss a police investigation with you.”

“You can if it involves my daughter!”

“We don’t know that.”

“What do you mean we don’t know? What do you call this?” Kate tapped the letter and necklace.

“Something that we need to look at. Dombroski, bag these.” He and Kate watched as the younger officer donned latex gloves before picking up the letter by a corner and slipping it in what looked like a plastic sandwich bag. The necklace got deposited in a second one.

Dombroski carried them out the door as another cop poked his large head around the jamb and spoke to the detective. “Chief needs you in on this.”

Stilton headed toward him. “I’m coming.”

“What about my daughter?” Kate demanded, springing back up from the chair and blocking his path. “What are you going to do about Grace?” She touched his arm, and the detective looked slowly down at her hand and then up at her face with his flat pale eyes. They reminded her of a shark. She moved her hand.

“We’re doing what we can, Mrs. Corbin. Sit tight and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

“Sit tight?” Kate snarled, but he’d walked around her and out the door.

Grace had been gone now for more than twenty-four hours. Kate paced again, staring at one concrete wall, then another. Who had chosen this wall color and why? It was a sickly shade of green, like spring grass suddenly kept from the sun. Did they think it would push people into confessing?

She tried not to think about the ticking of the clock, but it seemed to get louder and louder. Her legs were sore. How long had she been walking? She dropped into the chair, but immediately felt the need to get up again. She had to
do
something.

It occurred to her to list everything Grace had done on the day she disappeared. Wasn’t that what cops always wanted to know? She had to root around in her purse to find a pen, and then she couldn’t find any paper. More rooting around while the clock ticked on and on.

A tube of lipstick rolled out of her bag and across the table. Kate reached out a hand to stop it rolling off the edge, and had a sudden memory of three-year-old Grace wearing a tutu over tights that bagged at the knee, a string of cheap glass beads around her bare little chest, and lipstick smeared across her big, pleased smile. “Pretty, Mommy.”

Kate wept, large tears that she couldn’t hold back any longer. They trickled down her cheeks, and she found a balled-up Kleenex in her purse to absorb them. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t just sit there jotting things down as if it were a grocery list. That wasn’t going to bring Grace back. She had to go, move, get out of there and find her daughter.

She shoved the lipstick back in her purse along with her pen, and suddenly stopped short. It wasn’t just her daughter. Ian. She’d forgotten to call Ian. Kate scrambled for her cell phone, but there was no reception in the room. She opened the door with the cell phone pressed to her ear, and pushed the redial button just as Ian came walking toward her with Officer Dombroski.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “I was just trying to call you.” He opened his arms and she fell into them, new tears welling up.

“What’s going on?” His arms were strong around her and a small current of relief flowed through her. He’d be able to make them do something.

“He’s taken Grace. She didn’t run away, she’s been taken. It’s the same man, the same one who took Lily Slocum and Elizabeth Hirsh.”

“Slow down, Kate, I can’t understand you.”

She felt like shaking him, but that would only waste more time. She swallowed hard and started again. It took effort not to babble. “A letter came in the mail and Grace’s necklace was in it.”

“What necklace? And where’s the letter?”

Detective Stilton answered, “Right here, Mr. Corbin.” He held the baggie aloft and used it to point back at the interrogation room. “Let’s talk in here.”

Ian took a seat at the table, and Kate reluctantly sat back down next to him. Detective Stilton sat across from them and slid the plastic bag across the table. Ian caught it and began reading.

“The only prints we could find on this letter were your wife’s.” Stilton said.

“He was probably wearing gloves,” Kate said. Stilton didn’t look at her.

“You said there was a necklace?” Ian looked from Kate to Stilton.

Officer Dombroski crossed the room and placed the second baggie on the table. Ian picked it up.

“Is this your daughter’s necklace, Mr. Corbin?”

“Yes. We gave it to her for her tenth birthday.”

“I already told you that,” Kate said to Stilton. He barely glanced at her.

“Was she wearing it the last time you saw her?”

Kate said, “Definitely,” just as Ian said, “I don’t know.”

She looked at him. “Of course she was wearing it. She always wears it.”

“Even in the last year?” Ian said. “Her fashion sense has changed a lot.”

“So it’s possible that your daughter took this off before she ran away?” Detective Stilton sounded like it was a foregone conclusion.

“No!” Kate’s voice rang in the small room. Ian looked away, embarrassed.

“This letter could have been written by anybody,” Detective Stilton said. “There’s nothing specific in here that points to whoever took Lily Slocum and Elizabeth Hirsh.”

“Are you saying this is some kind of joke?” Kate’s voice shook with the effort to keep it level.

“Not exactly,” Stilton said, and he finally looked at her, a slow, steady gaze from those cold, cold eyes.

It took Kate a minute to figure out what he meant. “You think
I
typed this letter?” Torn between incredulity and anger, Kate gave Ian a look of appeal, waiting for him to refute the allegation. Instead, the look she saw on Ian’s face was doubt.