The Girl in Kellers Way Read online

  Once you get away from the affluent neighbourhoods on the hills you hit long stretches of houses on the fringes that belong to blue-collar stiffs. People who resent their meagre slice of the American dream, which for them died when the tobacco industry keeled over in the nineties. They live in run-down neighbourhoods that once had aspirations and in trailer parks littered with used syringes. A few of them escape, but they’re a rarity. By the time they turn twenty-five, most have had every trace of hope squeezed out of them.

  I never thought I’d end up in a place like this after spending all my adult life in the city. We arrived here four years ago after a long drive in pouring rain, towing a trailer loaded with all our possessions assembled like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The boys fell asleep somewhere in Virginia. They woke when I pulled into the driveway of the house I’d rented over the internet.

  Even through the misty windshield it was obvious the photos I’d seen before signing the lease were heavily photoshopped. I had a sudden urge to turn the car around and drive home, but I’d promised myself I’d give it three months.

  I came here because it’s where my father lived after retiring from the military. I guess I was looking for somewhere safe to hide after Danny was killed. What better place than near the Colonel. When I was a girl, my father had seemed invincible. A lot has changed since then.

  My father has early-onset Alzheimer’s. He deteriorated quickly and now spends his days staring vacantly through the smudged windows of an old-age facility on the edge of town. I visit twice a week. Never longer than twenty minutes. It’s the longest I can be in that place filled with the sour odour of incontinence and desiccation. Even in the thralls of dementia, my father seems to revel in my discomfort.

  Joe was ten and Sammy just eight when we moved to North Carolina. Living in a small town seemed the only way I could manage to raise them as a single mom. Their father was killed in a shooting near Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. Danny and I had been together all our adult lives. I never imagined a future without him. We had no plan B. Kind of stupid, I guess, us both being cops and all.

  Danny was shot in the head by a gangbanger during a routine drug arrest. He never had a chance. He lay in a coma for two days until I gave the doctors permission to turn off the machines. I don’t regret having Danny’s life support turned off, what I regret is that I had to make that decision in the first place.

  After Danny died, I did the unimaginable. I handed in my shield and became a full-time mom. I figured I’d find an office job when the boys were older. I didn’t want my kids to lose their mother as well.

  I thought the life insurance money would stretch further outside New York City. Then, out of the blue, the markets plummeted and our savings halved. To cut a long story short, my retirement was brief. I heard a homicide job was opening up, I applied, and I’ve been working murder scenes around here ever since.

  The pay is decent and I pretty much always get home in time to eat dinner with my kids. That’s almost unheard of for a city cop. Being a sole parent, I constantly have to juggle work, parenting and attending school events like this parent–teacher interview, which I’d already had to cancel twice before.

  When I arrived at the school for the meeting with Joe’s teacher, there was one parent inside the classroom with the teacher and another waiting on a plastic bucket chair in the hall. I kept walking down the empty corridor flanked by drab rows of lockers. A janitor was mopping the floor.

  In the girls’ toilet block I washed my hands with the intensity of a surgeon scrubbing up. The liquid soap’s cheap scent was floral in a sort of industrial way that made my lungs burn. I fixed my unruly chestnut hair with my fingers so that it was pushed back behind my ears. My makeup had faded over the course of the day and my freckles were exposed. They made me look much younger than a mother of two boys who were growing up faster than I cared to admit. Soon they would be towering over me. Not that I was ever noted for my height. I am five foot five and slim in build, mostly because of the energy that I burn working full time and keeping my household on track.

  When I returned, the classroom door was open, and the teacher was waiting inside. The last time I’d met Mr Stratton he was clean-shaven. In the intervening months, he’d grown a thick beard that seemed incongruous for someone who’d grown up at a time when the only men with beards were our grandfathers.

  ‘Thanks for coming.’ He shuffled through papers without looking at me as I sat down by his desk. ‘There are a few issues I’d like to discuss with regard to Joe.’

  ‘He’s not doing well at school?’ I asked, perplexed. I’d thought this meeting would be pro forma. He’d tell me how great Joe is doing. I’d thank him for his guidance and encouraging words. That’s how it’d always been with Joe. Ever since he first started school, Joe had always been a top student. I’d never had to worry about his grades. Truth be told, I’d kind of hoped he might get a college scholarship. He’d been a straight-A student since kindergarten.

  ‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t need to tell you that Joe’s a smart kid. He’s doing well enough at school without much effort. If he tried then he would undoubtedly be on the honor roll. That’s something we can work towards.’

  ‘But?’ From the way his eyes shifted around uncomfortably, I could just tell there was a ‘but’ coming up.

  ‘He’s been skipping afternoon classes. One of the teachers saw him on her day off down at the mall when school was in session. He was hanging out with a group of older kids. Known troublemakers. We sent you a note. Didn’t you receive it?’

  My handbag felt heavy on my lap. Two days before I had shoved a pile of mail into my purse with the intention of opening it at work over lunch. In the end, there had been no time for lunch, and I’d completely forgotten the letters were there.

  Chapter Nine

  Julie

  It’s just after eight on Sunday morning when Matt slides out of bed. I watch him disappear into the bathroom and am lulled back to sleep by the spray of the shower. I wake to the loud finality of the front door shutting.

  Through the bedroom window, I watch Matt backing the car down the driveway. This sudden, unexplained change of routine unsettles me. We always spend Sundays together.

  I watch his car disappear, helpless in my satin pyjamas, which I hate and only wear to make Matt happy. They were a gift from his mother, who conveniently forgot to cut off the discount store price tag. I bet the only reason Anne bought them was to deliver another subtle message. That woman enjoys putting me in my place.

  Matt has left a note on the bedside table. He has some urgent work at the university and will be back in time for lunch. So he says. Matt never, and I mean never, goes to work on a Sunday.

  He signed the note with the words ‘love you’ above his name. That should reassure me. When I look closely it’s obvious he squeezed in those words as an afterthought.

  What work could he possibly have at the university when he’s already brought home a briefcase filled with student papers to mark over the weekend? Plus we had plans. We’d talked about going antiquing later in the morning at an open-air market out of town.

  I dress and fix my hair and makeup. It’s important that I look my best even on a lazy Sunday morning. I am well aware that my husband is surrounded by temptation. A few years back, a student turned up to a lecture with a heart drawn in lipstick on her crotch. Sans panties, of course. She made sure he saw it too, if you get what I mean. He told me all about it. I laughed at the time. Today, just thinking of it scares the hell out of me.

  Alice is sleeping on the princess bed we bought when she turned six. Her dark hair is fanned across the pillow. The bed is a genuine four-poster that I found at an antique shop and decorated with gossamer curtains. It’s the bed I dreamed of having when I was a girl, sharing a tiny bedroom with two rickety bunk beds so close to each other you could jump across them without any risk of falling.

  Downstairs I make pancakes. It’s a family tradition on Sunday morni
ngs. That’s the other reason I’m annoyed about Matt’s disappearance: he never misses Sunday morning breakfast. We sit around the table eating pancakes and giggling at silly jokes that Alice makes up for our amusement. It’s my favourite time of the week. His too. Or so I thought.

  I spoon some mixture into the griddle pan and get to work on making a stack of pancakes. When I’m done I wrap them in a sheet of foil to keep them warm and put them in the picnic basket along with a bottle of blueberry sauce. Matt prefers maple syrup. He’s a purist, he always jokes. His damn problem. He should have been home this morning.

  I hate waking Alice, but we need to get moving.

  ‘Hey sleepyhead.’ I kiss her forehead. She’s a heavy sleeper like her daddy. Alice barely responds. I tickle her softly under her chin. Her blue eyes open and look straight into mine.

  ‘We’ve got a busy day today, hon,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s get you up and dressed.’

  ‘Mommy,’ her voice is hoarse from sleep. ‘I thought we were making cupcakes this morning. You promised.’

  ‘We’ll bake the cupcakes later.’ I put her clothes on her bed. ‘Time to get dressed and clean your teeth.’

  Alice comes downstairs five minutes later carrying a hairbrush and pastel bands to tie her hair. I brush her hair out as I do every morning. Usually I make little plaits or braids. Today we’re in a rush, so I tie a simple ponytail.

  ‘Done,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s get going.’

  ‘But mommy,’ she shrieks in dismay, ‘we haven’t eaten breakfast!’

  ‘I’ve made a picnic breakfast. We’re going to share it with Daddy.’

  We arrive at the campus not long after. The place is dead. A typical Sunday morning. Most of the students are sleeping off hangovers. The faculty car park is empty. As is Matt’s assigned parking spot. That really rattles me.

  I give him the benefit of the doubt. Alice rides her scooter as we head towards his office building. It has a view of a mock-Tudor chapel with a brass bell that rings daily, a hollow ritual designed to give the university a veneer of tradition. I tug the handles of the glass lobby doors. They don’t budge. The building is locked.

  ‘He’s not here,’ says Alice. It takes a six-year-old to point out the obvious.

  ‘Let’s try the side entrance,’ I suggest. Alice follows behind me on her scooter.

  ‘I told you he’s not here,’ says Alice, rolling her eyes dramatically when the side door doesn’t open either. ‘Can I play now, Mommy?’

  ‘You know what? That’s a great idea.’ My voice lifts in a cheerful falsetto that sounds unconvincing even to my own ears. Alice looks at me oddly.

  She loops around the quadrangle twice on her scooter. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes shine. I’m pleased to see how confidently she rides. I let her have a few more turns and then I guide her to the library.

  ‘Let’s see the beautiful books,’ I whisper as I push open the library door to the hush within. Sunshine from the glass dome illuminates the rotunda with the blinding light of morning.

  ‘Wow, look at the roof, Mommy.’ Alice’s voice is filled with awe as she cranes her head towards the gold-tipped ceiling. The librarian turns her chair to glare at us.

  ‘Mommy, does it rain through the hole into the library?’

  ‘No, honey. There’s glass covering the hole. It doesn’t rain inside at all,’ I tell her as we take the stairs to the second floor.

  I scan every row of bookshelves. There’s no sign of Matt working in the library. Not even in the alcoves where the reserve books are kept.

  The librarian’s eyes bore into my back as we walk out of the swinging doors. Alice takes her scooter from the lobby where I left it and skates around the quadrangle again. After a single loop, we return to the car.

  ‘I’m so hungry,’ Alice pronounces as she clambers into her seat. ‘Can we have our picnic now? We can save pancakes for Daddy to eat later.’

  ‘Good idea. That’s exactly what we’re going to do,’ I tell her. ‘I just need to check one last thing.’

  I drive to the faculty club on the outskirts of the campus, where Matt plays racquetball. I see the front fender of a Lincoln parked near the entrance. It’s the same model as Matt’s car and the same midnight blue colour. Except the licence plate is different. Matt is not at the university.

  ‘Mommy, I’m starving.’ Alice gets super irritable when she’s hungry. She sings the sentence to the tune of ‘Frère Jacques’: ‘I am hungry. I am hungry.’ Usually I find her made-up songs super cute, but today it grates on my nerves. I pull to a stop near the campus’s lake.

  ‘You know what Alice, sweetheart. Change of plan. Today, we’re going to have our own special picnic by the pond. Just me and you.’

  ‘And the ducks,’ she adds, pointing to a family of ducks swimming in the pond. ‘They can be in our picnic too.’

  ‘Of course they can.’ I help her out of the car.

  We eat lukewarm pancakes off plastic plates on a bench overlooking the lake. When we’re done eating, I pull apart a pancake and give Alice pieces to throw to the ducks. Alice laughs with delight as a duckling outwits its siblings by snatching the largest piece and swallowing it in one go. I check my phone in case Matt has sent me a text. He hasn’t. It dawns on me where Matt might be.

  ‘We have to go now, Alice.’ My tone is inadvertently hard, which is always a mistake with Alice. Suddenly she wants to stay. The more I tell her we need to go, the more she insists on staying. ‘Just five more minutes, Mommy,’ she says. She picks up a stick and pokes it into the water, splashing it over her clean sparkle shoes. I take the stick out of her hand and throw it across the pond.

  She’s crying now on account of her wet shoes, and the stick, which she says she wanted to show Daddy. I hug her and tell her that I’ll clean her shoes at home. I carry her to the car and take off her shoes and socks. She’s still crying so I give her a stray mini Hershey’s bar lying in the glove box.

  I drive at the maximum speed down the highway, heading south, out of town. I take the third exit and drive for ten minutes. When I see the sign I’ve been looking for I pull off the road into an unpaved parking area. There are three other cars. Matt’s isn’t one of them.

  I park the car facing an adjacent paddock so that Alice can watch mottled cows graze while I’m gone.

  ‘Where are we, Mommy?’ she asks.

  ‘In the country. Can’t you tell from all the cows!’ I give Alice a green lollipop, which I keep in my bag for emergencies such as waiting in cars and temper tantrums in the mall. We get those too, sometimes. Alice does not like shopping.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I say as I pass her my phone so she has something to play with.

  She peels off the plastic lollipop wrapper noisily. I get out of the car and lock it.

  There’s not many people around. Off to the side, a grey-haired man and a younger woman who I assume is his daughter stand with bent heads in front of a gravestone. I walk down the main path until I see a simple white-marble gravestone at odds with the garish monuments on either side.

  There’s nobody here. My tension eases. I was wrong. I should go back to the car. Yet I’m drawn to the tombstone by an invisible thread. The words ‘beloved wife’ engraved below Laura’s name shimmer in the morning light. A bouquet of fresh white roses lies across the marble slab.

  I pick up the roses and open the attached handwritten card. It says simply, ‘I miss you. I love you. Forever.’

  I received a note with that same handwriting this very morning.

  Chapter Ten

  Mel

  Captain Lawrence Howard got up from behind his desk as I entered his office. ‘Detective,’ he said, gesturing for me to take a seat on a grey upholstered couch that faced a window with a view of the Richmond skyline. An oak bookshelf took up one wall of his office, the other was covered with certificates of merit and framed photographs of him shaking hands with public officials and local sporting celebrities.

  Captain Howard looked s
lick for a cop. His hair was gelled back like a stock trader and he wore an immaculately pressed charcoal suit with a light blue tie and cufflinks. It was the first time I’d ever seen a cop wearing cufflinks to work.

  If I’d met him on the street I would have figured him for a realtor, or some other hard-boiled salesman type. But when I looked closely at his face, he was all cop. His eyes were hard and he had a cynical slant to his lips that told you he’d seen it all and nothing surprised him anymore.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he said, pulling over a desk chair. It gave him a height advantage over my seat on the sunken couch. I had no doubt that was intentional.

  ‘We found a body on Friday, buried in a forest just out of town,’ I said, opening my case file and sliding a photograph along the coffee table. It showed the Kellers Way victim’s decomposed remains in the grave. He examined it without expression. He’d seen images as bad or worse over his career.

  ‘A woman,’ I said. ‘She was expensively dressed. Gold jewellery and a pendant. We don’t know her identity. Forensics still hasn’t come in.’

  ‘So if you have nothing to go on, why have you come all the way to Richmond?’ Captain Howard watched me thoughtfully. There was a tension in his body as he waited for my response. I was pretty sure he already knew the answer to his question.

  ‘The pendant she wore was unusual. I am wondering whether it may be connected to the case of Edward Pitt,’ I said. Lenny had warned me to tread carefully with this subject.

  ‘Edward Pitt.’ He said it as if he’d forgotten all about his career-making collar. ‘It’s a closed case. It has nothing to do with your victim.’ His voice was firm. It brooked no argument.

  ‘Still,’ I said, ‘could you talk me through the case? At the moment, we have no ID and no leads. It’s possible there might be a link between the two cases. Perhaps Edward Pitt was the perp in this new case? He would have been active around the time my victim was killed.’