Still Missing

  For the longest time we just sat there looking at each other, not saying anything, understanding everything. At least I was. Finally I broke the silence.

  “You know you’re going to have to turn yourself in, right?”

  “I figured.”

  We stared out at the playground. No children were in sight. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud and it was cool in the shade. A slight breeze moved the swings back and forth. The air was filled with the rhythmic squeaking of their chains and the scent of a storm coming.

  “I really love your mom, you know?”

  “I know.”

  He took a deep breath, then put the deck of cards back in their box. I wanted to stop him, wanted to say, Let’s just play one last game. But it was too late. It was too late for everything.

  “I’ll walk into the station with you.”

  Gary had just gotten in from court and looked pissed off when he saw me with Wayne, but as soon as Wayne told him he wanted to make a confession, Gary pointed to me and said, “Don’t go anywhere,” then whisked Wayne away.

  I spent the next couple of hours wandering around the station, flipping through magazines and staring at the walls—counting cracks, counting stains. The betrayal by my family had hurt more than anything The Freak ever did to me, and in a place he’d never been able to touch. I was running from that pain as fast as I could.

  Finally Gary came out.

  “You shouldn’t have talked to him, Annie. If that had back-fired—”

  I handed him the tape. “But it didn’t.”

  “We can’t use this—”

  “You don’t need to, do you?” I said. No way was I apologizing.

  He shook his head, then told me that Wayne, after speaking with a legal aide, had decided to give a full statement and testify against my mom in exchange for a lighter sentence. He was under arrest, charged with accessory to kidnapping, extortion, and criminal negligence. They’d be holding him until his bail hearing.

  Gary said the bank records should come in later this afternoon or in the morning. They didn’t actually need them to arrest Mom now, but he wanted to verify Wayne’s statements before they interviewed her. They were also waiting to hear from the lab about the elastic hair bands but might not get that report until the morning. They didn’t consider Mom a flight risk—she didn’t even have a car—and she wasn’t a threat to society, so unless something changed they’d pick her up in the morning.

  They had Wayne call Mom and tell her he was going to check out a hot lead on a business for sale up-island. If it got too late to drive home he was just going to crash at a buddy’s place. Then he mentioned running into me, in case somebody told her, and added that I was back in town but tired from driving and was heading home to get some rest. She bought it.

  Afterward, Gary walked me out to my car.

  He said, “Are you okay? It had to be hard to hear all that.”

  “I don’t know what I am. It’s all just…I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Have you ever heard of a mother doing something like this?”

  “People do terrible things to people they love all the time. Just about every crime you can think of has been done at least once.”

  “Somehow I don’t feel better.”

  “I’ll try to call you as soon as we pick her up. Want to watch the interview?”

  “God, I don’t know if I’m up for that.”

  “I know she’s your mom, and it must be really hard to understand what she’s done, but I need you to be tough here. You can’t talk to her until we do, okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m serious, Annie. I want you to go straight home. I shouldn’t even be telling you everything I just did, but I didn’t like keeping you in the dark before. You might be tempted to warn your mom, but I trust you to do the right thing. Don’t prove me wrong. Just remember what she did to you.”

  Like I needed a reminder.

  Well, I obeyed part of Gary’s request—I did drive straight somewhere, but to your office, not home. I didn’t even care if anyone saw me. Against all reason, I just keep hoping that somehow it’s all a huge mistake.

  SESSION TWENTY-FIVE

  You’ve probably seen the papers—I’m hot news again. All the way home after our last session I kept thinking about Mom. She could be a right bitch at times, she’s generally selfish, and sure she lives in the land of it’s-all-about-me, but capable of something like this?

  When I got home that night I had a message from Luke on my voice mail. Of course he’s too nice to outright say, “Where the hell are you?” Instead it was something about letting him know when I’m home. I didn’t call back—didn’t know what to say.

  That night in my closet, I thought about Mom—Gary hadn’t called yet—and I imagined her sitting at home in front of the TV, smoking and drinking, with no idea the shit’s hit the fan and she’s standing downhill. As hurt and betrayed as I felt, I still hated knowing she had no clue what was going to happen.

  Then I remembered her phoning me the day of the open house. She’d made me feel guilty about a cappuccino machine, knowing an ex-con was going to abduct me a few hours later. Not to mention how she’d taken care of me after the second abduction attempt—I felt loved, and she’d set the whole damn thing up. Right then I knew I had to watch the interview. Had to hear for myself why my mother did this to me.

  Around ten the next day I got the call from Gary. They’d received all my mom’s bank records early that morning, which matched up with Wayne’s statement, and they’d confirmed the pink elastic bands were of the same dye lot. She’d been arrested—that must have sent the trailer park into a tizzy—and now they were letting her brew at the station until I got there. It didn’t take me long, even though I wanted to turn around the whole way.

  I hadn’t realized I was shaking until I got to the cop shop and Gary offered me his coat. It was still warm and smelled like him. I wished I could cloak myself in it and disappear. In a small room off the one where they had my mom, I stared at her through a window I assumed was a mirror on the other side. A couple of cops were there with me, and when I made eye contact with one of them, he looked down at his shoes.

  Mom was perched on the edge of the chair with her hands tucked under her thighs, her feet not quite touching the floor. Her makeup was faded and smeared, probably left over from yesterday, and her ponytail was crooked. Then I saw it. One eyelid drooped slightly lower than the other. She wasn’t totally wasted but she’d definitely had some vodka with her orange juice that morning. Gary came in the room and stood beside me.

  “You holding up okay?” He rested his hand on my shoulder. The weight of it felt solid and warm.

  “What’s the point of this? You have all the evidence.”

  “There’s never enough evidence. I’ve seen a lot of cases we thought were a slam dunk go sideways down the road. It would be better if we can get her to admit some involvement.”

  “Who’s going to interview her?”

  “Me.” His eyes glittered. If he were a horse, he’d have been chomping at the bit.

  Mom brightened right up when Gary walked into the room. My stomach churned.

  He started off by telling her she was being audio-and videotaped, which got a smile for the camera, and then he asked her to say her name, address, and the date out loud. He had to tell her the date.

  Once all that was out of the way, he said, “The officers who brought you in today read you your Charter of Rights and warning, but I want to state again that you’re entitled to legal counsel before you talk to us. You don’t have to say anything to me, but anything you do say can be used in court.”

  Mom shook her head. “This is so silly—who am I supposed to have kidnapped?”

  Gary raised an eyebrow. “Your daughter.”

  “Annie wasn’t kidnapped. A man took her.”

  Apparently deciding that explaining the legal definition of kidnapping to her was pointless, and I had to agree with him there, Gary moved on. br />
  “We have a signed statement from Wayne setting out exactly what transpired and both your parts in it.” He opened a file on the table, laid out a statement, then pointed to an item on it. “We also have your Visa bill, which proves you rented a van from out of town the day before Annie was attacked. We have the invoice from the rental company for the white van with your signature. We have an eyewitness who can place you and Simon Rousseau at a motel in Eagle Glen. We’ve confirmed that an elastic hair band found amongst Simon Rousseau’s belongings matches hair bands currently in your possession. We know you did it.”

  Mom’s eyes were enormous as she tensed in her chair, but a second later she relaxed her body and rearranged her skirt hem. She then turned her attention to a fingernail.

  With both hands on the table, Gary leaned forward.

  “See, my superiors—they think you didn’t just want Annie gone for a week. That’s what you told Wayne, but they think you hired Simon Rousseau to kill her—Annie had a life insurance policy with her company, which I’m sure you knew you were the sole beneficiary of. Your plan went wrong, all right—Annie was never supposed to come home alive.”

  With every sentence Mom’s body flinched and her eyes grew bigger. She began to stammer, “No…no…of course not…kill her? No…I’d never in a million years…”

  “I don’t think you understand me, Lorraine. They don’t just think you hired Simon Rousseau to kill her, they want you to have hired him to kill her, because that will make a big difference in time served.”

  I watched Mom’s face as she licked her lips a couple of times. To Gary it would look like nerves, but I knew my mom, and licking her lips was a sure sign she was trying to get her vodka-addled mind to focus.

  “They want me to have done it?”

  “A lot of time and a lot of money, taxpayers’ money, went into this case. My superiors, well, they’re none too happy about that. And the public? The public who spent their weekends searching the woods and putting up flyers while you knew what had happened to Annie the whole time? Well, they’re crying out for blood. So they don’t just want someone to pay for this, they need someone to pay for this.”

  “Well, it’s good they want someone to pay. The person who did this should pay.” Her eyes moistened. “When I think about what Annie went through…”

  His voice gentle, Gary said, “Look, Lorraine, I’m on your side here. I’m trying to help you get out of this mess. They don’t just want to convict you, Lorraine—they want to nail you to the wall. So unless you give me something to work with, you’re going to go down for hiring someone to kill your own daughter, and I won’t be able to stop it.”

  Both eyes drooped as she watched him warily. Not ready to walk into the trap and nibble the cheese, but sniffing the air. I watched the two of them—horrified, fascinated, yet somehow removed, as though this were someone else’s mother, some other cop.

  “I was in that hospital with you, Lorraine—I saw how hard it was on you. I know you really love your daughter—you’d do anything for her.” She began to kick her feet in the air beneath the table. “But Annie, she can be pretty stubborn, I know, and no matter how good your advice is, she doesn’t listen, does she?” Not sure I liked where he was going with this.

  “No one listens to you, do they? Not your daughter, not Wayne. It can’t be easy watching him blow chance after chance, nothing ever coming through for you.”

  “That man couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag unless I was standing over him.” With a toss of her ponytail, she shifted gears. “Some men just need an extra push to realize their potential.”

  Gary gave her a sad smile. “But you shouldn’t have had to push him, Lorraine. If he’d been a better husband, a better provider, well, you wouldn’t have had to do any of this, would you?” She started to shake her head in agreement but caught herself and became very still.

  “And we both know Wayne should’ve straightened things out with the loan shark so you could save Annie. But he didn’t, did he? Nope, he left it to you to try to fix. And now he’s putting it all on you.”

  He leaned toward her until their noses were almost touching. She sucked on her lip like she was trying to get the last traces of alcohol out of it. She wanted to say it, wanted to tell him—she just needed a little push.

  In a voice dripping sympathy, Gary said, “Wayne let you down, no doubt about it, but we can help you, Lorraine. We can make sure you’re safe. It’s not your fault things got so out of hand.” And with that little nudge she tumbled over the edge, her face flushed and her eyes feverish.

  “He was just supposed to keep her for a week. He told me the cabin was nice, he spent over a month getting it ready for her, but he wouldn’t tell me where it was because he said I’d be more believable if I truly didn’t know where to find her. He had a drug that would make her calm so she wouldn’t be scared or anything—she’d mostly just sleep—and it was totally safe. At the end of the week he was going to leave her in the trunk of a car on a street, then phone and tell me where it was so I could make an anonymous call to the cops. But he didn’t call, and the cell number he gave me didn’t work anymore. And I couldn’t do anything to save her. The loan shark said he’d cut my face.” Her eyes wide, she touched both hands to her cheeks. “I sent Wayne to talk to him and he screwed it up so bad we owed more.”

  “Did you give this to Simon?” Gary slid the photo of me I’d found at the cabin across the table.

  “It was the only decent photo I could find—she’s always frowning in the pictures I take.”

  “So you thought it was important he find Annie attractive?”

  “He’d seen photos of her in Dwight’s cell from when she was young, he wanted to see how she’d grown up.”

  Gary, who had been taking a sip of coffee, choked and broke into a coughing fit. He took a few deep breaths and cleared his throat, but before he could say anything Mom launched into her closing argument.

  “So, you see, it’s not my fault—if he’d kept to my plan, she’d have been fine. But now that I’ve told you everything you can talk to your bosses for me and straighten it all out.” She smiled prettily and reached over the table, placing her hand over his. “You always struck me as the kind of man who knew how to take care of a woman. I’d like to make you a nice dinner, show you my appreciation…?” She tilted her head and gave him another smile.

  Gary sipped the coffee for at least a minute, then set the cup down and drew his other hand out from beneath Mom’s.

  “Lorraine, you’re under arrest. You won’t be going anywhere for a very long time.” She actually looked surprised. Then confused. Then hurt.

  “But I thought you understood.”

  Gary straightened up. “I do understand, Lorraine. I understand that you committed a crime, you broke the law, several of them in fact, and did nothing to rectify the situation. I understand that you turned a killer loose on your daughter. I understand that the killer impregnated her, then killed her baby girl. That she was terrified, alone, beaten, raped, and brutalized—never knowing from one day to the next whether it was her last. Never knowing why this was happening to her. Now I can finally give her an answer, but I wish to hell it wasn’t this one.”

  When Gary began to walk out of the room, she stood up and grabbed his arm as he tried to brush past her. Tears shimmering in her blue eyes, she pressed her breasts against his arm.

  “But I didn’t know he was a killer, I never wanted her hurt—I’m a good mother, don’t you understand?” Her voice cracked on the last word.

  Gary took her by the shoulders, gently moved her away from him, and continued toward the door.

  “This isn’t fair!”

  At the door he turned and said, “What isn’t fair is that Annie ended up with you for a mother.”

  He came into our little room and stood beside me. In silence, we watched Mom through the mirror. For a few moments after he left, her face was stamped with outrage, but her eyelids lifted as the last of her liquid
courage left her and Gary’s final words sank in. She paled and put both her hands over her mouth. No fake wails now. Her body began to jerk and shake violently as she sobbed. Her eyes cast wildly around the empty room. She stumbled backward and sat down hard on the chair, staring at the door, still sobbing.

  “Do you want to go in and talk to her?” Gary said.

  “I can’t right now.” I was shaking.

  When I asked him what was going to happen next, he said Mom and Wayne would be held until the arraignment, then bail would be set. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that there might be a trial. Surely Mom will take a plea bargain. Even though I know I shouldn’t care about what happens to her, I still wondered whether she’d get a lawyer and how they’d be able to afford one.

  “What about the loan shark? Are they in danger?”

  “We’re going to be looking into that right away. But we’ll make sure they’re safe.”

  Neither of us said a word as Gary walked me out to his car—I sure didn’t know the appropriate thing to say. Thanks for arresting my mother and interrogating her so skillfully—you really know how to screw with her?

  As I turned to get into my car, he said, “I have something for you,” then handed me a pack of playing cards. “Wayne had them in his pocket when we arrested him and he asked me to give them to you. He wanted you to know how sorry he is.” He paused and looked at me intently. “I’m sorry too, Annie.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry—it’s your job, and you’re really good at it.” I knew I sounded bitter, and he looked miserable. “It would be even worse if she’d gotten away with it,” I said, even though at that moment I had no idea whether it was true or not.