The Last Dead Girl (20 page)

The idea of pillow talk with Luke Daw—or Eli—made Jana feel like she might throw up. She bowed her head, hoping the nausea would pass.

Luke misinterpreted the gesture. “Don't be embarrassed. It's not your fault. It has to be from the pills.”

It was the first time he had acknowledged that they were drugging her. He wouldn't tell her any more—not about the pills or about what she might have said to him. The news that she was having blackouts devastated her, and yet it wasn't really news. The one thing she had known all along was that she couldn't remember everything that happened to her.

There were bruises on her body that she couldn't account for. There were times when she woke up alone in her prison, but knew that someone had been with her, someone had been inside her, and she didn't know who—didn't know which of them to blame, which to hate: Luke or Eli.

It was one more level of violation: not knowing.

•   •   •

J
ana ran her fingers along the seam where the floor met the wall. She panicked when she didn't feel the thing she expected to feel, but a little farther on she found it: the quarter her mother had given her.

They had taken everything from her pockets when they brought her here, except for this one thing. Somehow they missed it. That first night, when they left her alone, she held on to it like a talisman and thought about her mother.

She never put it back in her pocket. She left it lying on the floor instead, out of the way, in the closest thing she had to a hiding place. Which turned out to be wise. Because not long after, Luke Daw took away the jeans she'd been wearing when they abducted her. He decided he liked her better in skirts. It made things easier for him.

Now, in the dark, Jana closed her hand around the coin. The one thing she had that they didn't know about.

She stood up and paced the room, as far as the chain would let her go. Not very far. The chain was wrapped around her ankle and secured with a heavy padlock that passed through two of the links. It was tight—not tight enough to cut off her circulation, but tight enough that she couldn't slip free. She had tried. She would have to find a way to break the lock, or the chain itself. Or she could go at it another way, from the other end.

The chain passed through the wall, between two boards. It had to be anchored to something on the other side. So she needed to break through the wall. Simple.

The place where the chain went through was low on the wall. Jana sat down in front of it and explored the surface with her fingertips. One board above the chain, one below. She focused on the one above. Found the two screws that secured it to the studs. Phillips-head screws. She needed a screwdriver. She had a quarter.

She fitted the quarter edgewise into the head of the screw. It wasn't a bad fit. It was a tantalizingly good fit, as a matter of fact. She tried turning it. Lefty loosey. She wasn't surprised when the screw didn't turn. She had tried it before.

There were hundreds of boards in the room, hundreds of screws. Luke Daw would have used a power tool to drive them all, a cordless screwdriver with a Phillips-head bit. What chance did Jana have with a quarter?

But she didn't need to take out every screw. She only needed two of them. Then she could remove one board and find out what was behind it. Maybe the chain was attached to a steel plate, and the plate was screwed to a wooden post back there. That would be, what, another four screws? Six screws, grand total. Could she remove that many, with a quarter?

One thing at a time. She fitted the quarter into the screwhead again, holding it with two thumbs and two fingers. When she turned it, the quarter slipped free. A good fit, but not good enough. The quarter had a rounded edge. A Phillips-head screwdriver came to a point.

Jana gathered the chain in her lap, singled out one of the links with her left hand. She used her right hand to rub the quarter against the link. The quarter was never going to be a screwdriver, but maybe she could put a point on it. It might take days, weeks, but what else did she have to do with her time?

Maybe it wouldn't work; maybe Luke would find the quarter. Maybe Jana would never be able to work the chain free of its anchor. Even if she did, she would still be in a prison. She didn't know how to get through the locked door. But she knew Luke Daw would keep coming through it. He would come to feed her and talk to her and use her. And if she could get the chain free, she would have surprise on her side, and a weapon.

One day she might wrap the chain around Luke Daw's neck.

L
ate Tuesday afternoon. The newspeople had come to the realization that Agnes Lanik wasn't likely to give them the tearful interview they wanted. They'd packed up and moved on. In their wake came a succession of elderly ladies, decked out in formal clothes and topped with hats or head scarves, who knocked on Agnes's door to drop off casseroles and offer their condolences for the death of her grandson.

I thought about sending Agnes flowers. Went as far as dialing a florist, but it seemed too impersonal. I got in the truck instead and drove to a garden center. Picked out a pot of begonias and another of impatiens. I brought them back and left them on her patio. I figured she could plant them in her garden if she wanted.

In the evening I set up my computer on Jana's desk. I had a business and I'd been neglecting it: canceling jobs, putting things off. I needed to get back to work. I started putting together a list of clients I needed to call, appointments I needed to reschedule.

At eleven o'clock I turned on the television and watched the opening of the local news—a long segment on Simon Lanik that included footage from a police press conference. Frank Moretti was there, but he stayed in the background. The chief of police took center stage—white-haired, stout, pleasant. He looked like someone's uncle.

A reporter asked him about the connection between Lanik and Jana Fletcher. The police had been seeking Lanik for questioning. Would it be fair to say that he had been their main suspect in Jana's murder? In light of his death, had the department changed its thinking? Was it possible that Jana's killer was still at large?

The police chief danced around the questions. The investigation of Jana's murder was ongoing. He couldn't comment on who was or wasn't a suspect. The department was still pursuing every possible avenue to uncover the identity of her killer. As for the Lanik investigation, it was in its very early stages. The chief was unwilling to prejudge the outcome. It remained to be seen whether, or in what way, the two cases might be connected. It might turn out that Lanik's death was unrelated to Jana's. There had been a series of assaults and property crimes in Cypress Park over the years. Lanik's murder might be part of that pattern.

It was Frank Moretti's theory: that Simon Lanik had been killed by someone trying to rob him. I wondered if Moretti really believed it. Maybe he wanted to believe it, because it would prevent him from having to question his assumptions about Jana's murder.

I switched off the TV and went back to my computer. Tried to focus on what I needed to do tomorrow. But the problem of Frank Moretti stayed on my mind. I got up and lit the tea-light candles on the mantel, four of them in a line. Cathy Pruett, Jana Fletcher, Jolene Halliwell, Simon Lanik. Luke Daw might have killed every one of them, or maybe I was chasing a phantom.

Cathy Pruett was the first to die. Frank Moretti insisted that her husband killed her. I tried to put aside the question of whether it was true, and asked myself instead if Moretti genuinely believed it. Suppose he did.

Suppose I'm Frank Moretti and I'm convinced that Gary Pruett killed his wife. The evidence in the case is weak, but maybe I can make it stronger. Pruett's in jail awaiting trial. I find another inmate—Napoleon Washburn—and convince him to make up a story. I get him to say that Pruett confessed.

Would Moretti do that? He had a reputation as an honest cop. Even Gary Pruett's lawyer couldn't find anything very bad to say about Frank Moretti. Just that he might get too close to certain crime victims.

If a man gets killed and leaves a pretty widow behind,
Emily Beal had told me,
Moretti might take it on himself to comfort her.

But in the Pruett case, the victim was a woman. There was no widow left behind. No pretty victim for Moretti to comfort.

Or was there?

Megan Pruett was left behind—Cathy's sister-in-law and best friend. What if Moretti tried to comfort her?

Megan Pruett never had any doubt about Gary Pruett's guilt. She would've wanted to see him sent to prison for life. Could she have persuaded Moretti to frame him?

I couldn't make myself believe it. She wasn't right for the role. Megan Pruett was a slightly snooty, late-thirties schoolteacher, not a temptress who could convince an honest cop to pin a false confession on a murder suspect.

I watched the four flames glowing on the mantel. Turned away from them and walked across the room. And remembered that there was another woman involved in the Pruett case—a victim of sorts: Gary Pruett's student, the eighteen-year-old girl he'd been seeing on the side.

Angela Reese.

Angela the artist. I had one of her paintings on the mantel. Everything on the mantel was a clue. She had given me a business card from the gallery that sold her work. The Woodmere Gallery. I found the card in my wallet.

•   •   •

T
he following afternoon, a few minutes after five, I parked my truck on the street behind the old courthouse downtown—the central station house for the Rome police, the place where Moretti had questioned me about Jana's death. I thought he must be inside; I could see his car in the lot.

I'd spent the morning on the phone talking to clients, mending fences. Setting up new appointments and rescheduling old ones. I had a home inspection scheduled for five-thirty, halfway across town. I should have been on my way already. Instead I was here.

Earlier in the afternoon I'd made a visit to the Woodmere Gallery, which occupied half a converted warehouse not far from the university. It had high, tin-plated ceilings and a lot of old ductwork and exposed brick. The owner was a bone-thin woman in her fifties, dressed in black, who might have given Megan Pruett a run for her money in the snootiness department. Her assistant was a slacker in his twenties who wore the same black but not as well. He had a sketchy goatee and smelled of cigarettes.

I talked to the owner first. She was happy to show me Angela Reese's paintings—she had seven on display and more in storage—but when I started asking questions, she shut down fast. She seemed to think the answers were none of my concern.

I left by the front entrance, drove around to the back, and waited. After thirty minutes or so, the slacker assistant came out for a cigarette break. I went over and told him what I wanted. He said he couldn't help me. I handed him twenty dollars. He still couldn't help me, but he said it with less conviction. I let him have another twenty and a ten, and he said he would give me his best effort but it was a delicate matter and he would need time. He promised to call me.

The call came at four forty-five. It lasted less than a minute. And now I was parked at the old courthouse, trying to decide if I should go in, wondering what I should say to Frank Moretti.

Before I could make up my mind, Moretti appeared at the back entrance of the courthouse. He walked to his car, the black Chevy sedan, moving at a fast clip, not his usual easy pace. I watched him get into the car and drive out of the lot.

He turned a corner out of sight and I had to make a decision. I followed him. I could have waited to see him another time, but I was curious about where he was going in such a hurry. He drove north, along the edge of Bellamy University, past the football stadium and a row of frat houses. College kids playing Frisbee on a lawn. He got onto Turin Road and followed it through residential neighborhoods, past the Knights of Columbus Hall. He drove by a 7-Eleven and a veterinary hospital, out toward Lake Delta.

We passed a bait shop and a canoe livery and suddenly I saw red and blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. Heard the
whoop
of a patrol car's siren. I slowed. Up ahead, Moretti did the same. I turned off the road and into the horseshoe driveway of a day care center. The patrol car drew in behind me. I cut the truck's engine.

A young cop in uniform climbed out of the car, leaving the lights flashing. He took his sunglasses off as he walked up to my truck. I rolled down the window.

“License and registration,” he said.

I had them ready.

“Do you know why I stopped you, sir?”

He didn't really expect an answer. I didn't say anything.

“You failed to signal your turn,” he said.

“I've been on this road for miles,” I said. “I haven't made any turns.”

“You turned off just now.”

“That was after I heard your siren.”

“You should have signaled that turn, sir. Please step out of the vehicle.”

Moretti's car pulled into the day care driveway.

“It doesn't have to go this way,” I said. “If he wants to talk to me, I'm happy to talk.”

“Step out of the vehicle. Now.”

I stepped out of the vehicle. The young cop told me to place my hands on the hood of the truck. I did. He patted me down, cuffed my hands behind my back, walked me to the patrol car, put me in the backseat. Moretti watched it all from his black sedan.

The young cop went to talk to Moretti. I don't know what they had to talk about; I think they just wanted to let me stew. After a few minutes, Moretti came over and climbed into the patrol car beside me.

“It's insulting,” he said.

He sat at ease in yet another gray suit, not looking at me, looking straight ahead, his palms resting on his thighs.

“It's bad enough you think you can follow me,” he said. “But to do it in a red truck with your name plastered all over it—I find that insulting. It's as if you don't respect me.”

“I respect you,” I said. “I came to see you at the courthouse because I found something out today and I wanted to make sense of it. But I shouldn't have followed you.”

“This thing you found out, does it have to do with Jana Fletcher?”

“Not directly.”

“Am I going to like hearing about it?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, that's fine,” he said. “Let's have it.”

“It's about the Pruett case.”

“The Pruett case is over and done.”

“It's about Angela Reese.”

Moretti turned to me for the first time. Gave me a dead-eyed look.

“What about her?”

“She's an artist now,” I said. “She does paintings. Some people might say they're not much to look at, but she sells them—through a gallery. She makes a little money, enough to get by. The first time I saw her work, I wondered who would want to buy it. But she gave me one of her canvases and it sort of grew on me. I can see the appeal.”

“Make your point.”

“Sorry. The point is, I got curious about who was buying Angela Reese's paintings. I found out the market's not very broad. Almost every painting she's sold has been bought by one person. An anonymous buyer. Who turns out to be you.”

Moretti faced forward again, gazing into the distance. “That's why you wanted to see me?”

“Yes.”

“To tell me I've been buying paintings?”

“To understand why.”

“You think it has to mean something.”

“Yes.”

“Of course you do. So what do you think it means?”

“I don't know. But I have a theory.”

“I don't doubt it,” he said. “Even when you have nothing else, you have theories. Why don't you lay it out for me.”

I tried to relax. Hard to do, with the handcuffs. “All right,” I said. “You met Angela Reese when you were investigating Cathy Pruett's murder.”

“That's true.”

“Angela Reese has a certain quality. She's pretty, but it's more than that. She has a kind of wholesome beauty.”

“That's a good word,” Moretti said. “‘Wholesome.'”

“And she's attracted to older men. She was having an affair with Gary Pruett.”

“I think I see where this is leading.”

“So you got involved with her,” I said. “There's nothing wrong with it; she was eighteen. And she wanted to paint, so you decided to help her out.”

“Like a sugar daddy.”

“Like a patron of the arts.”

“That sounds much better,” Moretti said. “But let's hear the rest. You didn't follow me just to accuse me of having an affair with Angela Reese. There must be more.”

“There is. But I'm not as sure of it.”

“Don't let that stop you.”

“All right. Napoleon Washburn—”

“Oh god,” Moretti said in a defeated voice. “Please don't start with me about Napoleon Washburn.”

“He lied about Gary Pruett's confession.”

“So you claim.”

“And I wondered if he lied on his own, or if someone put him up to it.”

Moretti closed his eyes. I could see his shoulders tense. “You want to be very careful right now,” he said.

“I
am
being careful. I didn't believe you would do something like that. But if you felt certain that Pruett killed his wife, you might be tempted to take a shortcut. And if you were sleeping with Angela Reese, you'd have a whole other motive. By sending Gary Pruett to prison, you'd be getting rid of a rival.”

Silence in the car. Outside, the uniformed cop was strolling along the curve of the driveway with his hands on his hips. Frank Moretti tipped his head back and sighed.

“What do I have to do?”

He said it to himself first, in the voice of a man who had come to the end of his rope. Then he opened his eyes and sat straight in his seat and directed the question to me. “What do I have to do to get you to stop playing detective?”

“You could tell me the truth,” I said.

“I've tried that. I've tried patience. I've given you more of my time than you deserve. So what will it take? Violence? Do I have to break something to get your attention?”

His tone was calm and his eyes had their usual tired look, but I caught a hint of something harder underneath, something he had to work to keep under control.

“You have my attention,” I said.