Catch Me

  She led us back to the desk sergeant, who gave me another look, then handed the detective my tagged. 22.

  “She had this in her bag. Licensed to carry,” he informed her.

  “Tattletale,” I mouthed at him.

  D.D. glanced at me.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She sniffed my gun. “Recently cleaned.”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Why am I helping you again?”

  “I pay taxes.”

  “In that case…” D.D. handed the desk sergeant my beautiful nickel-plated Taurus with its rich rosewood grip. “It’s legal, so when she’s on her way out, she can have it back.”

  The desk sergeant took my gun, handed me a visitor’s pass. I snubbed my nose at him.

  It’s possible I’d gone a little too long without sleep.

  We went upstairs to the homicide unit, where D.D. turned on her computer and I stopped breathing for the second time that day.

  RANDI’S PICTURE CAME UP FIRST. Her beautiful wheat blond hair blown out straight, one side tucked behind her right ear, long bangs swinging gracefully down the other side, drawing attention to huge, doe brown eyes. She was sitting next to a planter of pink petunias, maybe on her front porch in Providence, because I didn’t recognize the backdrop. But I felt the weight of her large, soft smile. The familiar gesture of her fingertips, brushing across the strand of pearls above the neckline of a dove gray cashmere sweater.

  Her grandmother’s pearls, gifted to her on her sixteenth birthday by her parents. Jackie and I had oohed and ahhed over them. We weren’t pearl people, but we understood how much Randi loved them. We knew that she’d wear them every day, whether entertaining or gardening or grocery shopping, and look perfect doing so. And if Jackie was jealous her best friend had received such an extravagant necklace, she didn’t show it. And if I was jealous my best friend had inherited a family piece from a grandmother who’d known and loved her, I didn’t show it. We were happy she was happy.

  Randi had glowed that day. She’d opened that box, and her normally quiet face lit up until she appeared even more lustrous than the pearls.

  I couldn’t help it. I reached out. Touched the image on the flat monitor, as if I could still feel the warmth of my friend’s skin, feel the indent of her dimple, hear her call my name.

  Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! Look at this! Can you believe it? My grandmother’s pearls. Oh, Charlie. Aren’t they beautiful?

  The words came out before I could stop them. “I failed her.”

  D. D. Warren was watching me. Looking and seeing. “Why do you say that?”

  “I was the glue. That was my job. Jackie organized us, Randi energized us, and I…I held us together. Through petty fights and minor squabbles and all the ways three girls can become two against one. We were better together. I appreciated that. So it was my job to keep us on track, reminding us even when it was difficult that three was better than two which was better than one. Except then we turned eighteen and drifted apart.”

  “Why?” D.D. asked the question flatly. As if she already understood the answer mattered, was the real reason I now couldn’t let my friends go.

  I took my eyes off my friend’s picture. I studied the detective and I started to understand the real meaning of being tough. The trait shared by Detective Warren and my firearms instructor J.T. and his wife, Tess.

  They looked at life without blinders. They had the confidence to not dodge the blow, but stand there and take the hit.

  “I was embarrassed,” I told the detective quietly. “I let us fall apart, because I didn’t just love Jackie and Randi, I knew that I loved them more than they loved me. So I never told them about my mother. If I had, then maybe Randi would’ve told us about her abusive husband. And Jackie and I would’ve helped her and we would’ve stood together, instead of scattering and dying apart. But I couldn’t tell them about my mom. I loved them so much, I couldn’t risk them thinking less of me.”

  Detective Warren leaned forward, peered at me intently. “What should you have told them about your mother, Charlene?”

  I held up my left hand. The fresh boxing bruises stood out starkly, bright purple kisses on the webbing between some of my fingers. But there were other markings as well, a patchwork of thin white scars zigzagging across my skin. They became more obvious in the summer, when I had a tan, than during the winter when, like most New Englanders, my skin was bone white. But I knew D.D. would spot the pale, spidery lines.

  I murmured, “I think other people’s mothers don’t break bottles over the back of their little girls’ hands, so they can take their children to the emergency room and have the cute male intern tweeze out the broken glass. I think other people’s mothers don’t hold a hot iron to their daughters’ fingertips, so they can return to the same ER three days later, when the cute male intern said he’d be working again.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Young enough to go along, old enough to know better.”

  “And this was in New Hampshire?”

  “Upstate New York. That’s where I lived before my mother died. At which time, Social Services tracked down my aunt and asked her to take me. That’s how I met Jackie and Randi, first day of school. We sat side by side. And just like that, we were best friends. We did everything together—played, studied, worked, rebelled. Except then we turned eighteen, and they had dreams and I didn’t. So I let them go. And I didn’t call or check up or be the kind of friend I should’ve been, because I didn’t want them to know just how much I missed them. I was embarrassed, that all these years later I still loved them more than they loved me. And now…And now…”

  I couldn’t get the words out. I just sat there and touched the digital image of my best friend who I’d never see again.

  I should’ve told Randi everything. I should’ve told Jackie. I’d hoarded my secrets as a child, then Jackie and Randi had hoarded their secrets as adults. Randi had never told us about her abusive husband. And Jackie never confided in us that she was gay. I only learned that during the police investigation, when Pierce Quincy, the profiler Jackie had hired, let it drop, and I’d sat there stone-faced, willing no expression to show, because of course I would know such a thing about my best friend. Of course one best friend would feel comfortable enough to share such a personal revelation with another best friend.

  The thin white scars on the back of my hand were the least of my concerns. It was the internal wounds that hurt me. My world had always been too small, first just me and my mother, then me and my aunt, then Randi Jackie Charlie. I’d always had too little. I’d always loved too hard. And I’d always lost too much.

  Baby, crying down the hall.

  I guess I’d had her, too, a baby I’d known I needed to protect. But I hadn’t, and now, I couldn’t even remember her name. So much for life without blinders. Twenty-eight years old and still taking daily dips in denial.

  I didn’t want to be at police headquarters anymore. I wanted to go home to the mountains. I wanted to walk into my aunt’s house, throw my arms around her, and cry like a child.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I loved them and I failed and I just can’t do it anymore. It is too hard to walk through this life alone.

  There was a knock on the door. Detective Warren and I both looked up. A woman stood in the doorway, wearing a cinnamon red sweater that showed off wavy locks of stunning reddish brown hair and an even more stunningly curved figure. A TV show cop, I thought instantly. The kind that solved the case, won the male lead, and celebrated both events with a new pair of Jimmy Choos.

  I looked down at my nearly flat chest, then fingered my plain brown hair yanked back into a plain brown ponytail, and immediately felt self-conscious.

  “Show her?” asked the woman.

  “Just started. Come in. Detective O, this is Charlene Grant. Charlene, Detective O. She set up the page, being our resident Facebook expert.”

  Detective O and I shook hands. She appeared to be about my age, whi
ch surprised me. Then I peered into her brown eyes and met a gaze as flat and frank as D. D. Warren’s. Cop eyes. Must be one of the requirements to graduate from the academy.

  “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.”

  IT 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.”