Salem Falls

  "Dad?"

  As Thomas opened the door, Jordan jumped a foot, lost in his own thoughts. The razor nicked his cheek, and blood began to run freely down his jaw and neck. "Goddamn, Thomas! Can't you knock?"

  "Jeez. I only wanted to borrow the shaving cream," he said. He squinted in the mirror at his father's face. "Better do something about that," he advised, and closed the door behind him.

  Jordan swore and splashed water onto his cheeks and jaw. The shaving cream burned where it seeped into the cut. He patted his face dry with a towel and looked up.

  It was one long, straight, thin cut, carved down the center of his right cheek.

  "Jesus," he mused aloud. "I look like St. Bride."

  He blotted toilet paper against it, until it stopped bleeding, then wiped up around the sink and started out of the bathroom to get dressed. A moment later, he found himself in front of the mirror again, staring more carefully at his cheek.

  Gillian Duncan stated that she'd scratched Jack in an effort to get him away from her. Charlie Saxton had photographed the corresponding scrape on Jack's cheek when he was being booked; it was in the file. But a man who had been scratched by a girl fighting off a rape would have four or five parallel marks--the scars of several fingernails, where they'd connected with his skin.

  And Jack didn't.

  May 2000

  Salem Falls,

  New Hampshire

  Jack and Gill went up the hill

  To fetch a pail of water.

  Jack poked Gill just for the thrill

  Of nailing Duncan's daughter.

  Charlie crumpled the handwritten ode that had been left taped to his computer terminal. "Not funny," he yelled in the general vicinity of the rest of the precinct, then plastered a smile to his face as the first of his three interviewees entered the building, clutching her father's arm.

  "Ed," Charlie said, nodding. "And Chelsea. Good to see you again."

  He led them to the small conference room at the station, which in his opinion was a slight cut above the interrogation room. These girls were nervous enough already to be party to an investigation; he didn't need to make them any more jittery. Holding the door open, Charlie let Ed and his daughter pass inside.

  "You understand why it's important for me to take your statement?" Charlie asked, as soon as they all were seated.

  Chelsea nodded, her blue eyes wide as pools. "I'll do anything to help Gilly."

  "That's good. Now, I'm just going to tape our talk here today, so that the prosecutor gets a chance to hear what a loyal friend you are, too."

  "Is that really necessary?" Ed Abrams asked.

  "Yeah, Ed, I'm afraid it is." Charlie turned to Chelsea again, then started the microcassette recorder. "Can you tell me where you went that night, Chelsea?"

  She glanced sideways at her father. "We were just getting cabin fever, you know?"

  "Where did you go?" Charlie asked.

  "We met at the old cemetery on the edge of town, at eleven P.M. Meg and Gilly came together; Whit and me were waiting when they got there. Then we all went up that little path that goes into the woods behind it."

  "What were you going to do?"

  "Just talk, girl stuff. And build a fire, so we'd have, like, some light." Her head snapped up. "Just a tiny fire, not the kind you need a permit for or anything."

  "I understand. How long were you there?"

  "I guess about two hours. We were getting ready to go when ... Jack St. Bride showed up."

  "You knew who he was?"

  "Yeah." Chelsea brushed her hair away from her face. "He worked at the diner."

  "Had he talked to you before that night?"

  She nodded. "It was ... kind of creepy. I mean, he was a grown man, and he was always trying to make jokes with us and stuff. Like he wanted us to think he was cool."

  "What did he look like?"

  Chelsea sat up straighter in her chair. "He was wearing a yellow shirt and jeans, and he looked like he'd been in a fight. His eye, it was all bruised and swollen." She wrinkled her nose. "And he smelled like he had been swimming in whiskey."

  "Were there any cuts on his face?"

  "Not that I remember."

  "How did you feel?"

  "God," Chelsea breathed, "I was so scared. I mean, he was the reason we were all supposed to be at home that night."

  "Did he seem angry? Upset?"

  "No." Chelsea blushed. "When I was little, my mom used to make me watch this commercial about not taking candy from strangers. And that's what he reminded me of ... someone who looked all normal on the outside but who would turn to the camera when we weren't looking and smile like a monster."

  "What happened?"

  "We said we were getting ready to leave, and he said good-bye. A few minutes later, we left, too."

  "Together?"

  Chelsea shook her head. "Gilly went in a different direction, toward her house."

  "Did you hear anything, after you left?"

  Chelsea bowed her head. "No."

  "No screaming, scuffling, hitting, shouting?"

  "Nothing."

  "Then what happened?" Charlie asked.

  "We were walking for a while, just out of the woods on the edge of the cemetery, when we heard something crashing through the trees. Like a deer, that's what I thought. But it turned out to be Gilly. She came running at us, crying." Chelsea closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "Her ... her hair, it was all full of leaves. There was dirt all over her clothes. And she was hysterical. I tried to touch her, just to calm her down, and she started to hit me. It was like she didn't even know who we were." Chelsea pulled the sleeve of her shirt down over her wrist and used it to wipe her eyes. "She said that he raped her."

  "Why did you let Gilly leave by herself?"

  Chelsea looked into her lap. "I didn't want to. I even offered to walk her home."

  "But you didn't."

  "No," Chelsea said. "Gilly told me I was being just as bad as our parents. That nothing was going to happen." She twisted the hem of her shirt into a knot. "But it did."

  Whitney O'Neill frowned at a spot on the conference table. "None of your friends suggested it might not be a bright idea to let your friend go off into the woods alone?" Charlie asked.

  "Is my daughter a witness or a suspect?" Tom O'Neill blustered.

  "Daddy," Whitney said. "It's okay. It's a good question. I guess we were all just tired, or maybe even a little shaky after having him show up ... Chels and Meg and I hadn't gone ten feet before we realized that we probably ought to go with her. That's when I yelled for Gilly."

  "You yelled," Charlie clarified. "Not Chelsea or Meg."

  "Yeah," Whitney said defensively. "Is that so hard to believe?"

  Charlie ignored the heated stares of the girl and her father. "Did Gillian answer?"

  "No."

  "And you didn't go back to check? To make sure Gillian was all right?"

  "No," Whitney whispered, her lower lip trembling. "And you have no idea how I wish I had."

  When Meg had been a little kid, she used to hide under the sofa every time her father dressed in uniform. It wasn't that she was afraid of police officers, exactly ... but when her dad wore his shiny shoes and brimmed hat and sparkling badge, he was not the same man who fixed her Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes on Sundays and who tickled her feet to get them underneath the covers at night. When he was working, he seemed harder, somehow, as if he could bend only so far before snapping in half.

  Now, it was totally weird to be sitting on her bed with all her stuffed animals ... and to have her dad interviewing her with his tape recorder. Even weirder, he looked just as freaked out as she was.

  Meg's heart beat as fast as a hummingbird's, so fast she was certain it would just explode out of her chest any minute. That whole night was a blur, one that faded in and out like the colors on a kaleidoscope. Not for the first time, she wished she'd been able to give her statement with Chelsea and Whitney in attendance. You can do this, she told her
self.

  She closed her eyes and thought of herself sneaking back to the woods, to clear the branches of the dogwood and the ribbons from the maypole. She'd done that, and no one had found out.

  "Honey?" her father asked. "You all right?"

  Meg nodded. "Just thinking of Gillian."

  He leaned forward, brushing her hair back from her face and catching it behind her ear. "You're doing great. We don't have much more to go over."

  "Good, because it's hard to talk about," Meg admitted.

  Her father turned on the recorder again. "Did you hear anything after you left?"

  "No."

  "No screams from Gillian? Fighting? Trees rustling?"

  "Nothing."

  Charlie looked up. "Why did you let her go off alone?"

  "It ... it's hard to remember exactly ..."

  "Try."

  "It was Gilly's idea," Meg said faintly. "You know how she is when she gets something in her head. After talking with him for a while, I guess she figured she was brave enough to handle anything."

  "Did someone try to get her to rethink this?"

  Meg nodded quickly. "Chelsea ... or maybe Whitney, I can't really remember. Someone told her she shouldn't go."

  "And?"

  "And she just ... didn't listen. She said she wanted to walk through the lion's den and live to tell about it. She's like that sometimes."

  He stared at her, every inch a detective, so that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. "Daddy," Meg whispered. "Can I say something ... off the record?"

  He nodded, and turned off the tape recorder.

  "That night ... when I sneaked out of the house ..." Meg lowered her eyes. "I shouldn't have."

  "Meg, I--"

  "I know you didn't say anything when I told you on tape," she continued in a rush. "And I know it's your job to be the detective, not the dad. But I just wanted you to know that I should have stayed home, like you wanted. I knew better."

  "Can I say something, too? Off the record?" Her father looked away, at a small watermark on the ceiling, blinking hard as if he were crying, although that impression must have been a mistake, because in her whole life Meg had never seen him do that. "The whole time I was taking Gillian's statement, I kept hearing your voice. And every piece of evidence I drove to the lab I pictured coming from you. I hate that this happened to your friend, Meg ... but I'm so goddamned grateful that it didn't happen to you."

  He leaned down to embrace her. Meg buried her face against her father's neck, as much for comfort as to keep herself from confessing something he was not allowed to know.

  Molly's pink feet churned like pistons as Matt slapped the front of the diaper over her and secured the tapes at the sides. "Get her on a changing table," he mused, "and suddenly she wants out as bad as Sirhan Sirhan."

  Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out his gold shield. He dangled it over the baby's reaching hands, distracting her long enough for Matt to get her jumpsuit snapped at the crotch again. "I don't think Meg was ever that tiny."

  "Yeah, well I don't think Molly is ever gonna get that big."

  Matt lifted his daughter off the table and carried her into the living room of his house, Charlie following.

  "You'd be surprised," Charlie said. "You go to bed one night singing her a lullaby, and she wakes up listening to Limp Bizkit."

  "What the hell is Limp Bizkit?"

  "You don't want to know." Charlie sat on the couch as Matt slid the baby beneath a brightly colored activity gym.

  "I've been thinking of marketing these in prisons," Matt joked. "You know, you hang them from the ceiling ... little mirrors and jingly shit and squeaky buttons to keep the inmates busy. Figure they've got about the same brainpower as a five-month-old, although Molly may actually have an edge there." He sank down into a chair opposite Charlie. "Maybe it'll make me the million I'm not going to get as a prosecutor." Reaching across the coffee table, he picked up a stack of statements.

  Immediately, Charlie shifted gears into his work mode. "Looks like a pretty straightforward case, doesn't it?"

  Matt shrugged.

  "Victim can ID her attacker, attacker has a history, and there's an excellent chance of physical evidence. And now you've got three corroborating eyewitness reports."

  "Corroborating," Matt repeated. "Interesting word choice." He lifted the first transcript and flipped it open to a page where part of the dialogue had been highlighted with a marker. "You see this?"

  Charlie took it from him and scanned it. "Yeah. After she left, Whitney O'Neill got a conscience and yelled for her friend, who was too busy being attacked to answer."

  Matt handed him a second transcript, Chelsea's. "This girl says she offered to walk Gillian home before leaving. Which Whitney O'Neill doesn't mention in her statement."

  Charlie snorted. "That's not exactly a salient point. So what if they can't recall every single instant of that night? For Christ's sake, they all say the same thing about what time the guy showed up, what he said to them, what he looked like. They all admit they heard nothing after walking off. That's the stuff that's going to snag your jury."

  "Your own daughter," Matt continued, ignoring the detective, "says Gillian insisted on walking home alone, as a dare. Gotta tell you ... if I had been there that night, that would have stuck in my head." He slapped the three transcripts down on the table. "So which is the right story?"

  Charlie glanced at the cooing baby on the floor. "You get back to me when she's sixteen. You talk to a girl who's scared shitless after her friend gets raped in the woods in the middle of the night, and see how much she can recall detail for detail. Jesus, Matt, they're kids. They were an arm's length away from the Devil and lived to tell about it ... but they're still shaking. And even if they can't remember this one thing exactly right, they weren't the ones who were assaulted. Their statements aren't as substantive as Gillian's--they're only supposed to be used to verify what she said."

  When Matt didn't answer, Charlie exploded. "You're telling me you made me put those girls through hell for nothing? They're upset. A jury is going to weigh that against some pissy little discrepancy that doesn't even signify."

  "Doesn't signify?" Matt's voice rose. "Everything signifies, Charlie. Every damn thing. The job you do impacts the job I do. This isn't some petty theft. This is a predator, and the only person who's got a gun to shoot him down is me. If every t isn't crossed and every i isn't dotted, it's that much easier for this asshole to walk out of the courtroom and do it all over again."

  "Hey, look, it isn't my fault--"

  "Then whose is it? Whose fault is it going to be when Gillian Duncan wakes up with nightmares and has trouble trusting men for the rest of her life and can't have a normal sexual relationship? Even if St. Bride spends forever locked up, the victim never gets to walk away from this. And that means neither do you, Charlie, and neither do I."

  The fury in his voice startled Molly. She rolled away from her baby gym and started to cry. Matt swept her into his arms, holding her close against his chest. "Shh," he whispered, bouncing her, his back to Charlie. "Daddy's here."

  Loyal, New Hampshire was the kind of town that looked just right when the leaves were falling like jewels or when the snow settled in a down blanket to even the hills and valleys. Even now, in mud season, the whitewashed buildings and uniformed schoolgirls made the sloppy central green feel like a movie set instead of a place where people went about their lives.

  Addie parallel-parked in front of a general store, where a woman wearing hiking boots and a handkerchief skirt was painting a sale sign on the front window. Shading her eyes from the sun, Addie approached her. "Boots for $5.99? That's a good deal."

  The shopkeeper turned, assessing her with a single glance. "We still get girls who come to board at Westonbrook who haven't figured out the land's a swamp from April till June. We sell Wellies like they're going out of style."

  "I imagine you get a lot of business from the school."

  "Su
re, since it's the only show in Loyal. Put our town on the map back in 1888, when it was founded."

  "Really?" Addie was surprised it had been around for that long.

  The woman laughed. "You'll get the grand tour and fancy brochures at the admissions office. Come to check it out for your daughter, have you?"

  Addie turned slowly. This woman had just given her the means to an end. She couldn't very well barrel into the headmaster's office and ask him about Jack. On the other hand, if she was a concerned parent who'd heard rumors ... well, she might find more people who were willing to explain what had happened.

  "Yes," Addie said, smiling. "How did you guess?"

  *

  "Mrs. Duncan, is it?" Herb Thayer, headmaster of Westonbrook, walked into the office. Addie was waiting on a Hepplewhite couch, drinking tea from a Limoges cup, doing everything she possibly could to try to hide her battered old boots beneath the furniture.

  "Oh, please, don't stand on ceremony." He gestured to his own feet, encased in thick rubber boots. "Unfortunately, when William Weston founded this school on the banks of his brook, he forgot about how the mud would be exacerbated by a New Hampshire spring."

  Addie simpered, pretending that he'd said something remotely amusing. "It's a pleasure to meet with you, Dr. Thayer."

  "Mine, completely." He sat down across from her, taking his own cup of tea from the tray. "I'm sure you were told in admissions that the application deadline has unfortunately passed for next term--"

  "Yes, I have. Gillian's been at Exeter ... but Amos and I would much prefer it if she were at a school a little closer to Salem Falls."

  "Amos," the headmaster repeated, feigning surprise. "As in Amos Duncan of Duncan Pharmaceuticals?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  Thayer smiled more broadly. "I'm certain that we'd be able to squeeze her in, with a little ingenuity. After all, we wouldn't want to turn away a girl who would be a real asset to Westonbrook."

  More like you're considering all her daddy's assets and what they could endow. "We're very interested in your school, Dr. Thayer, but we've heard some disturbing ... information. I was hoping you might be able to clear things up for me."