Catch Me (26 page)

“Nice dog,” she said. She peered under the desk, where Tulip was curled up asleep.

“Not my dog,” I said automatically.

The detective stared at me, then at D.D.

“Not my dog either,” D.D. said.

“Well, that explains it.” O propped one hip against the desk. The office wasn’t big; we were now all crowded in, me sandwiched between two hard-edged Boston cops with better wardrobes and bigger guns. Somehow, I didn’t think that was accidental.

“What do you think?” the new detective gestured to the computer screen, voice brusque.

“I’m sorry?”

Detective O glanced at D.D. again.

“Haven’t gotten there yet,” D.D. said by way of explanation. “It’s your baby, so why don’t you do the honors.”

“All right,” Detective O began. “So…Saturday, the twenty-first, will be the second anniversary of Randi Menke’s murder in Providence.”

I flinched, said nothing.

“And the first anniversary of Jackie Knowles’s murder in Atlanta. Given the pivotal date, we thought we’d set up a Facebook page in honor of both victims and see if we can provoke a response.”

“How?”

“Jackie and Randi must have had other friends and acquaintances before you moved into town,” D.D. spoke up. “Did your arrival upset any of these relationships? Maybe displace another girl, create competition, social rivalry?”

I regarded her blankly. “I don’t know. We were eight. I’m not sure I was aware of social rivalries when I was eight.”

“What about as you grew up? You girls became the three musketeers. How did other girls take it?”

I still didn’t understand. “We weren’t mean. At least, I didn’t think of us that way. We weren’t bullies or anything. We just…played together.”

“What if other girls wanted to play?” Detective O asked curtly. “Would you let them?” There was a tone to her voice, almost an accusation. I found myself leaning away. Maybe it was a tactic she often used with subjects, but clearly she’d already found me guilty.

“You mean like in grade school?” I ventured. “Because I have vague memories of jumping rope and playing freeze tag, but lots of kids were doing it, not just us three.”

Detective Warren spoke up. “Let’s try high school. By the time ‘Randi Jackie Charlie’ hit high school, what was the social landscape like? Were you always together, or did you have other friends, other hobbies, sports, after school activities?”

“We weren’t always together. We had different class schedules, of course. And different extracurricular activities. Jackie was active with the debate team, soccer team, and the alpine ski team. Randi was into figure skating and home arts. I did cross-country skiing in the winter, but spent most of my time helping my aunt with her B&B.”

“So you had other friends?” D.D. prodded.

“I guess. There were over a hundred and fifty kids in our class, so we definitely knew more than just each other.”

“Let’s start with Randi.” Detective O took over the conversation again, brown gaze probing. “When she wasn’t with you and Jackie, who were her friends?”

I had to think about it, delve back ten years, and the minute I
tried, I could practically hear Jackie’s voice in my head, laughing at my terrible memory. Me, of all people, the cops needed
me
to remember. “There was this girl…Sandra, Cynthia, Sandy…Becca, her name was Becca. She ice skated, too, I think. And maybe a Felicity? Artsy, like Randi. I think.”

“Did you like them?”

I shrugged. “I think so?”

“They like you?”

I shrugged again, feeling even more self-conscious. “We would say hi to each other in the halls.” Probably. “Why? What are you looking for?”

“The fourth girl,” Detective Warren said. “The girl who wanted to be friends, too, but none of you let her in. We have reason to believe she’s still out there, and she’s really pissed off.”

I
T TOOK A BIT.
We had to pour through my high school memories, which was a challenge at best. I know some people can tell you the name of the cat they had when they were four, but I wasn’t one of them. I simply don’t remember things well. Not good things, not bad things. Not twenty years ago, not twenty days ago. If memory was a muscle, then mine had been purposefully atrophied through consistent lack of use.

Plus, Detective O rattled me. The way she asked questions, then scrutinized my answers as if she already knew I had something to hide. I felt simultaneously guilty and remorseful. She was disappointed in me. I was failing her; I should remember faster, answer better, confess all.

Good cop, bad cop, it occurred to me. Both detectives were playing me expertly, but all they had to show for it was a very tired, increasingly confused witness, who honestly didn’t recollect her childhood.

Finally, we Googled my high school, and found an archive with digital copies of old yearbooks.

With a bit of effort, I was able to identify a dozen girls that floated around our trio, some friends of Randi, some friends of
Jackie. None were friends of mine. Even reviewing pictures of my Nordic ski team, I didn’t recognize half of the girls’ pictures, couldn’t provide their names.

My world really had been Randi and Jackie. Away from them, I passed the time. With them, the world started spinning again.

I wondered if they would’ve said the same. Had they really enjoyed spending all their weekends helping out at my aunt’s B&B? Were they really excited to take my call at ten o’clock at night because I’d thought of one last thing to say?

Maybe I wasn’t the glue that held us together. Maybe I’d been the anchor around their necks. And that’s why we’d drifted apart when we turned eighteen. They’d been happy to finally get away from me.

The detectives took down names and background info. They wanted personal information on Randi, things only a good friend would know about Jackie. Nicknames, favorite expressions, songs, movies, TV shows, childhood pets.

I could answer all of their questions. I tried to tell myself that meant something. I hadn’t just loved my friends. I’d
known
them. I’d listened, I’d understood, I’d cared.

Jackie and Randi, I’d remembered.

But it became increasingly difficult to bolster my flagging spirits as the detectives turned my childhood relationships upside down and inside out, leaving me feeling emptier and emptier. As if Randi Jackie Charlie hadn’t been the best part of my life, but maybe just a very unhealthy friendship fostered by an overly needy girl in order to compensate for her mother’s destructive love.

The detectives muttered among themselves, took notes, asked questions, opened more Internet pages and launched more Google and Facebook searches.

I stopped sitting and paced the tiny confines of the office instead.

Detective D. D. Warren had framed certificates on the wall. Apparently she had a degree in criminal justice and lots of advanced training in various firearms and forensic courses. The frames were slightly askew, so I straightened them up. They were dusty as well, so I took a napkin and polished them up.

What I needed was Windex to polish the glass. Without thinking,
I turned to ask, and found two sets of eyes staring at me. The detectives’ gazes went from the straightened frames to me to the straightened frames again.

“Neat freak much?” Detective Warren drawled.

“Only when I’m nervous.”

“How often are you nervous?”

“Every day of the past year.”

The detectives exchanged glances.

“You went to a public school?” Detective Warren prodded.

“Yes.”

“Who has neater handwriting? You, Jackie, or Randi?”

“I don’t know. Randi had a thing for drawing little hearts over her i’s. Does that count?”

“What about print?”

“Me probably.” I shrugged. “But only because Randi preferred cursive, and Jackie had terrible handwriting, all cramped and rushed. It didn’t do any good to pass notes with her in class—we could never read what she wrote.”

“Wrote like a doctor,” D.D. said amiably.

“Exactly.”

“Do you listen to the police scanner when you’re off duty?” she asked abruptly.

The change in topic confused me. “What? Sometimes. Why?”

“Just thinking, in your line of work, you must like to keep your finger on the pulse of the city. And the things you must hear, the things you must know, being police dispatch and all.”

“You’re dispatch?” Detective O spoke up, finally sounding impressed. She looked me up and down, as if reassessing. “Tough job. I got a friend who does it. Kids are the toughest calls, she says. So much shit going on out there, and so little you can do to help them.”

“True.”

“Does it make you mad?” she continued conversationally. “Because I’m a sex crimes detective and it makes me
furious.
I mean, the number of perverts out there, and the things they can get away with, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Most kids are too terrified to come forward, and even if they do, system puts them through the
wringer. You must hate that. Taking those calls while already knowing that even if the officer shows up and an arrest is made, it’s still gonna end badly for the kid. Just the way it is.”

“It’s best not to get personally involved,” I said. I had stepped away from both of them. I wondered if they had noticed; figured they had. I found it interesting that while their bad cop routine had rattled me, the good cop routine had me genuinely fearful and ready to exit stage left.

“Look,” D.D. said briskly, waving her hand toward the computer monitor and their pile of notes. “This is a lot of information we’re plowing through in a short time. Why don’t you write down any other names we should consider, no matter how inconsequential, then you can head out. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

She handed me a sheet of paper, a pen. Then she picked up a stack of files, clearing a space on top of a gunmetal gray filing cabinet for me to use. “There you go. And while you’re at it, write down the full names of your parents and your aunt.”

“Why my parents?”

“Basic background.”

“My mother’s dead. My father’s not part of my life. Don’t think it’s relevant.”

The good detective wasn’t going to let me off that easy. “Didn’t you come to me for help?”

I looked at her.

“You were standing outside my crime scene,” she continued, and this time there was an edge of challenge in her voice. “You said you were there because you Googled me. Though, now that I think about it, you never approached me. You were walking away.
I
ran
you
down.”

“I wasn’t going to approach you.”

“But you said—”

“I just wanted to see you. I wasn’t, I didn’t,” I waved my hand around her office defensively. “I never expected any of this. You’re my precaution built into a precaution. I figured I’d write you a letter, provide details on my own case. That way, if I didn’t get it done on
the twenty-first, you’d have a better shot at finally catching the guy on the twenty-second. You’d provide justice for my aunt, closure for Randi and Jackie’s families. I wasn’t researching you for me. I was studying you for them.”

D.D. narrowed her eyes. “Two of your friends have been murdered,” she stated bluntly. “You believe you will be the third.”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve left behind your home, the people who know you. You’re hiding out in the big city, no registered phone or utilities. You have no computer, no e-mail, no Internet footprint to trace. But you’ve kept your name.”

I had my chin up. “Can’t change everything.”

“You’re training, boxing, running, shooting. Preparing to make your last stand. But you’re going to send the dog away.”

“Yes.”

“And maybe you looked me up, but it was never with the mind-set of asking for help
before
the twenty-first. Not to mention, you’re a woman with a target on your back who hasn’t asked her own officers for assistance.”

I didn’t say anything, just returned her steely blue stare.

“Can’t figure you out, Charlene,” she drawled at last. “You trying to live January twenty-one? Or are you trying to die?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“But do you want to
live
?”

I remained silent. D.D.’s gaze dropped to my scarred hand, and in those fine white lines, I figured she read the answer.

Earlier today, Tess had said that adults could change, that children grew up. But some things in life were very hard to transform. For example, taking the little girl who’d once stood there passively while her mother ironed her fingertips and training her how to throw a punch. Or taking the same little girl, who’d willfully chewed and swallowed a shattered lightbulb, and teaching her how to pull the trigger.

I was trying to move forward. Some days were certainly better than others. But in the end, I’d only had 363 days as a fighter. I’d experienced far more as the victim, the child who did whatever her
mother wanted her to do, because that was the price of love, and that little girl had lived too little and loved too hard and lost too much.

“Names please,” Detective Warren said, and gestured to the blank piece of paper.

I took my time, mostly because my hands were shaking. I formed each letter carefully, wanting the result to be neat and legible. I wrote two names, following an instinct I couldn’t explain, but that felt right.

I took one last moment, to study my carefully printed letters.

Then, I handed over the piece of paper.

I collected my dog.

I collected my gun.

Three
P.M.
Thursday afternoon. Fifty-three hours and counting.

Tulip and I headed out into the city’s stark, snow-frosted landscape.

D
ETECTIVE
O
WAITED
until Charlene had exited the homicide unit, then she returned to D.D.’s office, closed the door, and collapsed in the desk chair across from her.

“Could we really be that lucky?” she asked, her voice incredulous. “I mean, is it just me, or is Charlene Grant a perfect fit for our shooter?”

“Don’t know if it’s luck,” D.D. mused, frowning. “Remember, I first encountered her outside the second homicide. When I ran her down, she claimed she was checking me out to handle her own case. But maybe that was just fast thinking on her part. She offered up her own troubled history to distract me from the fact she was loitering outside an active crime scene.”