The River Killings (7 page)

“Anyhow, we still have a date with Coach Everett tomorrow afternoon. Five o’clock.”

“Oh, hell, we do?” No way. I couldn’t face getting into a boat again. Or enduring Coach Everett’s ego. “Can’t we postpone it?”

“Come on, Zoe. You can’t give up just because of one bad row.”

Is that what it was? “Swimming with nineteen dead women was ‘one bad row’?”

“That’s the point. It wasn’t our rowing that was the problem. It was the bodies. We’re getting good. Remember how it felt right before we hit them?”

Of course I did. We’d been flying. Out of control.

Susan went on, pressing me to row. At five o’clock, she argued, it would still be bright daylight. And Coach Everett would be there in a launch in case of emergency. And besides, rowing was the only thing without calories that calmed her down.

“Really?” I shouldn’t have asked. “What about sex?”

“It’s fattening. Sex makes me hungry.” She gulped coffee, washing down a mouthful of French toast. “Actually, Tim and I eat more after sex than any other time. Tim’ll get out of bed and put away half a gallon of ice cream, seriously.”

“Thanks for that, Susan.” I pictured Tim standing naked at the freezer, spoon in hand. Lord. No wonder Tim had such a hefty paunch.

Luckily, Susan didn’t pursue the topic; she went back to rowing. “If we don’t go tomorrow, we’re wimps. We’ll never get over last night. We’ll be stuck in that night.”

I reached for the cream cheese, stalling, hoping to come up with an excuse. I smeared the stuff slowly, coming up with nothing. “I don’t know,” I finally managed. Great, I thought. How pathetic. Why couldn’t I just say no?

“Zoe, we’ve got to get out there sooner or later. Sooner’s better.”

I sighed, took a bite of bagel, chewed it with a dry mouth. Swallowed with difficulty. I had no escape. No excuse, except dread. And dread, I told myself, was no excuse. Don’t be a wimp, I scolded. I pictured horseback riders falling and climbing back on. Skiers falling and getting back up. Rowers flipping, and cold
black water rushing up my nose and into my ears. Stop, I told myself. Get over it. “Okay,” I muttered. “Five o’clock.”

“Good girl. I’ll call and confirm.” She chomped. “After all, the regatta’s only a couple of weeks away.”

Oh, Lord. The thought of the regatta knotted my stomach. I gulped lukewarm coffee and changed the subject. “How were your girls today? Still mad at Molly?”

“No, that’s history. Lisa saw the headlines and—poof—I was a celebrity. And the press was calling and the TV vans outside. Believe me, they’ve moved on. How about Molly?”

“She figured out that somebody died in the river. Now she’s afraid I’ll drown. And she doesn’t want to go to school anymore.”

“poor kid. She must be scared. She’ll calm down after a few days. Once things get back—”

“All finished?” Gladys grinned in my direction, flashing her silver star. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Susan sat up straight as she answered. “Everything was delicious.”

Ignoring her, Gladys caught sight of the newspaper folded on the table. She lost her grin, nodding at it. “What about that?” She frowned. “You two got yourselves in the paper. You’d best keep your heads down now. Nobody’s safe anymore, not anywhere. Not in this world.” She laid the check down with slender ring-covered fingers, displaying long acrylic-extended nails and sashayed off, leaving us in a scented cloud.

“Ready to go?” I started to get up, but Susan didn’t budge. Her eyes widened, aiming behind me, over my shoulder. I started to turn around, but before I could, someone landed on the booth beside me, blocking me in.

T
HE
W
OMAN
W
AS
SOLID,
H
ER
S
HORT
B
ROWN
H
AIR
H
ELD
O
FF
H
ER
colorless face by heavy black-rimmed sunglasses, and she slid into the booth smoothly, looking smug.

“Ladies,” she greeted us through lips that were thin and dry, devoid of lipstick. “You’re not leaving, are you?” She reached over to Susan’s plate, helped herself to a leftover piece of bacon.

“Who the hell are you?” Susan slid across the booth, starting to get up.

“Settle down, Mrs. Cummings. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.” The woman cupped her meaty hand, revealing a badge and ID. “Special Agent Darlene Ellis, FBI.”

Darlene Ellis wore a short-sleeved white shirt that revealed sturdy biceps and loose gray khakis that had been cut for a man; her hands and wrists were thick; her fingernails clipped short, coated with colorless nail polish. Agent Ellis was crisply ironed and smelled like Old Spice.

Susan sat still and said nothing. I mirrored her, doing exactly as she did. She was a lawyer, after all; she must know how to act around the FBI.

“You know why I’m here.” It sounded like an accusation.

We did? I looked at Susan. Her face was blank. Neither of us spoke.

“Frankly, I read the so-called statements you gave the police, and you know what? I got the feeling you left some things out. There’s nothing there. No beef. So, I’m thinking there’s more. Stuff you remembered later.”

Susan and I remained silent.

“Or stuff you held back.”

We were motionless, mute. Two statues.

“Ladies.” Agent Ellis lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “This case is bigger than either of you can possibly imagine. It’s worse than your worst nightmare. You don’t want to mess with the people involved in it. And, trust me, you don’t want to impede an FBI investigation. Anything you know or remember, any thoughts you have, no matter how small, belong to me.” She looked at Susan, then me. “Anything you want to share?”

We sat, blinking at her. No, there was nothing.

“Well, you think of anything, you call me. Report directly to me, and only to me.” Her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t, if you withhold a single fact or detail, you can be charged with obstructing a federal investigation.” She smiled thinly, the face of a schoolyard bully. “Any questions?”

I shook my head. No, no questions at all.

“I have one.” Susan’s voice had a playful, lilting quality

“Shoot.”

“How did you find us here, Agent Ellis? Did you follow us?”

Agent Ellis leaned on her elbows and glared. Susan glared back. Oh, wonderful, I thought. Susan had started a staring contest with a testy FBI agent.

But Susan was undaunted. “Because we’re just two private citizens out for breakfast here,” she continued, her voice gaining power and momentum as she went on. “And the FBI has no business hindering our movements or badgering us. And I don’t remember inviting you to join us. Did you invite her, Zoe?”

“Me? Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “I assumed you had.”

Agent Ellis glowered. “Your attitudes are unfortunate, ladies. Because you two should celebrate that I know where you are and that I’m watching you. You two stumbled into a nasty—I repeat— a very nasty arena. These people have seen your names in the paper. They know who you are and where you live, just like me. So, yes, I got my eye on you, and I’m betting they do, too. I’m watching
who approaches you, who makes contact with you, who even looks at you. Because these people . . . they even imagine you know something about them? You’re gone—poof. Just like that. You got it?”

She looked at Susan for a long moment. Susan stared back, eyes shining. Then Agent Ellis turned to me, her jaw extended, bullying.

“This case is FBI now. You hear or see or remember or even think you remember something, you call me, for your own sakes.” She handed us each a card. “Someone contacts you, you call me. You even dream about the case, you call me. Understood?”

Agent Ellis nodded, first at Susan, then at me. “Mrs. Cum-mings. Ms. Hayes.” When our eyes met, she winked. “Nice meeting you both.” Then she slid off the booth and vanished into the rear of the restaurant.

T
HERE
WASN’T
E
VEN
T
HE
H
INT
OF A
BREEZE,
AND T
HE
A
SPHALT
of the streets seemed to steam in the unnatural heat, sizzling almost as intensely as Susan. Dripping sweat, we stomped ahead without a destination.

“Why didn’t you just deck her?” I asked. “Could you have been a little more belligerent?”

“Screw her.” Susan was still mad. “I’m not going to be intimidated by some self-important female Eliot Ness wannabe.”

“Susan, maybe you should pick your enemies. An FBI agent may not be someone you want to mess with.”

“She was in my face. She thinks her badge is a license to bully people? Well, she picked the wrong victim.”

Great. Susan was in her prizefighter mode. When she got upset, she started swinging; probably this reaction served her well as a criminal attorney. I wasn’t sure, though, that it was an asset outside of the courtroom.

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was walking behind us, saw an elderly man, limping with a cane, about four steps back.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking around.” I faced forward and spoke softly, trying not to move my lips. “To see if someone’s following us.” “Nobody’s following us, Zoe.” “Agent Ellis was. She followed us to the deli—” “And she said what she had to say. Now she’s done.” “How do you know?”

“The FBI can’t keep a tail on every person who might or might not know some tiny detail about every single case they’re investigating. They don’t have enough people. So she made her point, and now she’ll leave us alone.”

We kept walking, and I kept looking behind us, ahead of us, across the street. Crossing Fourth Street, I looked to my left and right, straining my peripheral vision for anyone suspicious, anyone who might be stalking us. Didn’t that man in the denim cutoffs look just a little too casual? Wasn’t that woman’s handbag way too large? And why was she looking at us? Why, when I spotted her, did she look away? By the time we got to Three Bears park, I’d identified at least forty people who were probably on our tail.

“Let’s sit a minute,” Susan suggested. “I’ve got to get to work, but first I need to think.”

“It’s too hot to think,” I said. “My brain’s melted.”

But the shade looked welcoming. We entered the park, passing the familiar concrete statue of
The Three Bears
, and settled on a shady bench behind the toddler swings. probably, without being aware of it, we’d been heading to the park all along, like homing pigeons returning to a safe place.

We sat surrounded by the comforting shrieks of children at play, the commotion of little limbs running and climbing and chasing.

“So. Look around. See anyone suspicious?” Susan said.

“See anyone who isn’t?”

“You mean, over the age of four?”

“Obviously. Under four, they’re all suspicious.”

A heavyset nanny pushing a little boy on the swings smiled at us. I eyed her suspiciously and looked away.

“Okay, be honest.” Susan wiped her forehead. “Is it just me? Or was Agent Ellis really a butch belligerent bitch?”

I had to concede. “Both. Agent Ellis could use some work on her people skills. But it’s just you who’d take her on.”

“I don’t get it,” Susan said. “What does she think we know? What does she want from us?”

“I have no clue. But I’m calling Nick. Maybe he’ll know what’s going on.” I took out my cell and punched his number on auto-dial.

Nick’s voice mail invited me to leave a message, so I did. Then, hot and tired and not knowing what else to do, I sat in the shade beside Susan, watching a pair of determined toddlers climb the jungle gym where Molly and Emily had played only eye blinks ago. Now, Molly thought she was far too sophisticated for Three Bears, called it the “baby park.” When had Molly stopped being a baby? How had time passed so quickly? I looked around at the young mothers with their small children, feeling as if I were watching my own past. How many hours had I spent in this park watching Molly, pushing her on the swings? Suddenly, all the cliches about time fleeting and kids growing up fast seemed painfully accurate and un-cliche-like. A priest walked by, smiling gently as if reading my thoughts.

“Well,” Susan said. “Want to go?”

A hefty grandmotherly woman pushed a baby carriage over and planted herself on the bench right beside me, too close, especially in this heat. Odd, because there were plenty of vacant benches all over the park.

“Mind if I sit here, dear?” she asked after she sat.

“No problem. Actually, we’re leaving.” I began to stand.

“Wait. Don’t go yet.” The woman spoke softly, sweetly. “Just sit still, as if everything’s fine.”

The woman smiled and touched my arm with a surprisingly smooth, unfreckled hand. I looked at Susan, who looked back at me, baffled and a little alarmed. I tried to move my arm away, but the woman held on to it, as if to stop me. My cell phone was still in my free hand; I considered calling for help. But what would I say? Hello, 9-1-1? An old lady is touching my arm? I told myself that I was overreacting; the old lady might just be lonely, might be senile and not even realize that she was clutching me. Even so, I sat still, not calling 9-1-1, not turning around. Obeying a stranger.

“Lovely afternoon,” the old lady mused, her hand beginning to feel like a bony vise. “But so hot. I think it’s supposed to rain later in the week.”

Susan was on her feet, ready to go.

“Sit down, dear,” the woman told her. “Both of you. Sit with me awhile.” Holding my arm with one hand, she reached inside the carriage with the other. I looked but saw no baby, only a lumpy bundle of blankets. Why was she pushing a carriage with no baby? Was she crazy? Or was she hiding something in the blankets? A gun? A bomb?

“Come on, Zoe. We’re leaving.” Susan took hold of my free arm and pulled. The old lady pulled back with surprising strength. It was tug-of-war, and I was the rope.

“Get up,” Susan grunted.

“Sit down,” the old woman insisted.

“Let me go,” I groaned.

“Hush up,” the hedge behind us commanded. “And Mrs. Cum-mings, sit down.” The voice trembled, rumbling like thunder.