08-A Thousand Bones, page 28
She opened her eyes to see Brad still staring at her. “They told you what happened to me?” she asked.
He nodded, his eyes closing for a second, then snapping open, as if he realized it was the wrong thing to do. He came back to the bed and took her hand. She thought he might lift her fingers to his lips and kiss them, but he didn’t. Just held her hand in his, his eyes searching for somewhere to settle besides her face.
There was a tap on the door, and a man came in. It took her a second to recognize him. Kellerman, Rafsky’s boss.
He came a few steps into the room and stopped. “The doctor said you could talk.” He looked at Brad. “Would you excuse us?”
Brad started to protest, but Joe raised a hand. “It’s okay, Brad. Why don’t you get a coffee for a few minutes.”
“Joe, I—”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
Brad moved away from her, his eyes focused on Kellerman before he slipped from the room. Kellerman waited until the door eased shut before he came closer to the bed. Joe tried to sit a little higher, but it was hard with the IV. Kellerman waited until she was comfortable.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
There was some compassion in his voice, but his eyes betrayed his other feelings—blame and anger.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Can you tell me about Detective Rafsky?”
“He’s out of surgery,” Kellerman said. “But he lost a lot of blood. The doctors say it’s fifty-fifty for him. If he does make it, he’ll have little use of his right arm.”
Joe’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she turned her head toward the window. “Have you caught Roland Trader?” she asked.
“No,” Kellerman said.
She looked back to him, hearing something in that word that told her there was more. And she realized it had been almost eighteen hours since the ambush. “Tell me what happened,” she said.
Kellerman pursed his lips. “After you told us he was the shooter, we put out an APB on him,” he said in a flat voice. “We didn’t know until forty minutes later, when we finally got in touch with your department, that his sedan was still sitting outside his motel. Evidently, your deputies didn’t see him leave.”
“So what did he drive to the woods?” Joe asked.
“It took us another hour to find out he rented a second vehicle, a green Jeep,” Kellerman said. “We got a second APB out on that, and around eleven-thirty, one of your deputies located the Jeep over by Bass Lake hidden in some brush.”
“The Collier cabin,” Joe said.
Kellerman gave her a moment, then went on. “We immediately checked out the cabin. The Colliers’ vehicle was gone, and we got no answer at the door, so we went in.”
“Oh, no,” Joe whispered.
“All three Colliers were dead.”
Joe closed her eyes, letting the tears come. Kellerman handed her the box of Kleenex off the table and kept talking, his voice a soft drone in her ears.
“He slashed their throats. Didn’t look like he raped the girl, though. It appeared he was in too big a hurry. He took canned food, blankets, things like that. By the time we got a third APB out on the Collier vehicle, he was probably already in Canada.”
Joe was quiet for a moment, then looked at him. “Were Annabelle Chapel’s bones in the cave?”
Kellerman shook his head, drawing a small notebook from his pocket. “I’m sorry to do this to you now,” he said. “But I have to ask you some questions.”
“I talked to a trooper last night,” she said, “in the ambulance.”
“I know. But your information was rather disjointed.”
She pulled the sheet a little higher and crushed the edge in her hand. The numbness in her fingers was wearing off. She could feel the threads of the sheet.
“We have the tape of your interview with Ken Snider before you left the station,” Kellerman said. “But we need to know if he said anything else in the cruiser.”
“I don’t know. I rode with Rafsky.”
“Did Snider say anything after the officers were shot?”
“He tried to help me,” Joe said. “That’s why Roland shot him. I don’t think Ken Snider killed any of the girls. I think everything he told us in the interview room was the truth except the part about the Indian friend. I think Roland Trader killed those girls.”
Kellerman just shook his head. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go over this one more time. Tell me exactly what happened during the ambush.”
Joe closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. It was important that she make things as clear as her memory would allow. Any one detail could help them find Roland Trader. She began to speak, slowly and clearly, faltering only a few times.
When she was finished, Kellerman set his pen down. He poured a cup of water from a plastic pitcher. He held the cup out to her, and she shook her head. He drank it himself.
“I know you were asked this last night, but now think hard. Did Roland Trader say anything to you that might help us know if he went anywhere but Canada?” Kellerman asked.
She thought for a moment. “No,” she said.
“Did he say anything about the other victims?”
Again, she had to think. “No.”
Kellerman’s next question didn’t come immediately, and she glanced at him, seeing in his face that same discomfort she had seen in Brad’s.
“I need to know step by step what he did to you.”
She stared at the white blur of the sheet. But she was seeing the falling snow and feeling the cold across her back. When she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
“Deputy,” Kellerman said, “stand away from it. Tell it as if you were writing a report.”
She nodded absently, lowering her eyes. The words were in her head, but she couldn’t say them. Ropes. Hoist. Knife. The cutting away of her uniform. The burn of the cold on her skin. The silent and cold way he raped her. The grind of the pulleys. The suspension of time as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
“He tied my hands with a belt,” she said. “He tied my feet to the hoist and cut off my uniform. He raped me. He dragged me across the snow, cut me, and pulled me up into the air. Then he left.”
She looked up slowly. Kellerman was staring at her, his eyes dark with something she couldn’t immediately decipher. Disbelief? Or was it pity?
“Thank you,” he said. “One last question. Whose decision was it to take Snider out of the sheriff’s office into the woods?”
She looked at him, hearing again that edge of blame in his voice. Whose decision?
The chain of command left unquestioned responsibility with Sheriff Leach, but she knew it was more than that. It was Mack, trying to be the city cop he needed to be. And Leach, despite twenty-five years behind the badge, blinded to the thought that the pristine wilderness he loved could possibly hold any danger. And Rafsky, putting aside every cop instinct he had in order to protect her and her department.
And her? What was her part of the blame?
“Deputy Frye?” Kellerman said again. “Who made this decision?”
“We all did,” she said.
Sleep would not come, chased away by the images flickering on the screen of her eyelids. She was aware of Brad always there, slumped in the chair, but it was too hard to talk or even keep her eyes open. She tried concentrating on the sounds outside her head. The squeak of the nurse’s soles as she came in to check the IV. The rattle of a cart in the hall. The plaintive ring of a telephone.
Finally, she felt herself drifting off. But a touch on her arm brought her back.
“Brad?”
“No, baby, it’s me.”
Joe opened her eyes.
“Ma. Oh, God, Ma…”
Her mother’s soft cheek was close, her cigarette-and-Shalimar smell everywhere. Arms enfolding her, fingers stroking her hair. For the moment, all the ghostly images were gone, chased away by the realness of her mother’s touch. Joe clung to her.
When Florence finally pulled back, every feeling and every thought were there in her face for Joe to see. The green eyes behind the big pink-framed glasses welled.
“Ma, don’t cry. Come on…”
“Don’t tell me not to cry.” Florence wiped a hand roughly across her cheek. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her purse sliding off her arm.
“Brad called me. I got the first flight to Detroit I could,” she said.
“How’d…”
“Had to rent a car and drive from there.”
“You hate to drive in the snow.”
Florence shrugged. Her eyes hadn’t left Joe’s face. She reached out and gently touched her cheek, tears welling again.
“My poor baby.”
“I’m okay, Ma.”
Joe started to reach for the Kleenex box on the nightstand. Florence held it out.
“Blow your nose,” Joe said, nodding.
Florence jerked two tissues out and blew her nose. Then she lifted her glasses and wiped her eyes, letting out a deep breath.
“Did you talk to anyone yet?” Joe asked softly.
Florence nodded. “Your doctor, that young fellow…”
“Did he tell you what happened to me?”
Florence nodded again, closing her eyes.
Joe could see her struggling to hold it together. She reached across the sheet and took her mother’s hand. When her mother’s tears came this time, Joe didn’t say anything. She let her cry.
The nurse came in, stopping when she saw Florence. “I’m sorry, but I have to take her vitals.”
Florence wiped her face as she rose from the bed. “I’ll go wash up.” She went into the bathroom, taking her purse.
When the nurse left, Florence emerged from the bathroom. For the first time, Joe got a good look at her mother. She had put on some weight, and it looked good on her, but nothing else had changed. Her hair was still its improbable brassy blond, Aqua Net–frozen in its Alice Faye style. Her pink lipstick, the same color she had been wearing for decades, matched her big tinted glasses. Gold hoops hung from her ears, but her blue pantsuit was wrinkled from the long trip.
A tiny smile came to Joe’s lips.
“What?” Florence asked.
“You look great,” Joe whispered.
Florence smiled and set her purse on the chair. She noticed a man’s coat lying there.
“Is Brad here?” she asked.
Joe nodded. “Somewhere.”
Florence came over to the bed. “Joe, is there anything I can do?”
Joe hesitated.
“Baby, please, let me help.”
Joe struggled to sit up. Florence was there immediately to help her. Joe started to swing her legs over the side of the bed where the IV stand was.
“I need to go somewhere, Ma, and I need you to help me.”
Florence’s eyes swung to the door, looking for a nurse, but then back to Joe, who was trying to get out of bed. Florence put a hand on her arm.
“Joe, you can’t—”
“I can, Ma. If you’ll help me. Please.”
Florence sighed and looked around. She spotted a robe and slippers that Brad had brought and gave them to Joe. Joe grimaced as her mother gently helped her to her feet and slipped the robe over her shoulders. Florence put an arm around Joe’s waist and, wheeling the IV pole ahead of them, led her daughter out of the room.
The lone nurse, busy on the phone, didn’t see them as they headed down the hall to the elevator.
“Where we going?” Florence asked.
“Intensive care,” Joe said.
The hospital was small, the ICU easy to find on the second floor. Joe was stopped by a nurse, who said she couldn’t enter unless she was family.
“I’m a police officer,” Joe said. “I was with him last night.”
The nurse hesitated, then nodded, telling Florence that she would have to wait outside. The nurse led Joe farther down the hall, helping her with her IV. She paused outside a small glass-enclosed room.
“He’s in there,” she said. “But you can’t go in, okay?”
Joe shuffled to the small window. The small, dimly lit room was crowded with machines. Rafsky lay in a narrow bed, covered to the waist by a pale yellow blanket. His right shoulder, arm, and part of his chest were wrapped in heavy packing and gauze. His face was ashen and hollow, and he looked thin and weak under the tangle of tubes.
Joe wiped her eyes.
It was only then that she saw the woman in the room. She had her back to the window, and all Joe could see was a blue sweater and a bouffant of dark hair. Then the woman turned, as if sensing Joe was outside the window. Lovely brown eyes, despite the shadows of exhaustion under them. Gina Rafsky.
The woman rose quickly and came out of the room, closing the door gently behind her. She clutched a handkerchief in her fist, and her eyes were swollen and red. They were tearing up again now.
“Deputy Frye,” Gina said softly.
“I’m so sorry to intrude,” Joe started. “I just wanted…”
Gina gave her a shaky smile. “Please don’t apologize,” she said. “I’m glad you came down here. I was going to come up and see you later. I wanted to talk to you.”
Joe looked down, hoping Gina Rafsky did not want to ask any more questions about what happened at the waterfall or why they were out there.
“I wanted to thank you,” Gina said.
“Thank me?”
“If you had not found the strength to survive,” Gina said, “my husband would not have survived, either. I owe you for his life.”
Joe felt more tears, and she shut her eyes. She felt Gina Rafsky give her an awkward hug, heard her whisper something about telling her husband that Joe had come by, and then she was gone, back inside the small room.
Joe turned and walked slowly away, wiping her face with her forearm. She saw her mother standing in the doorway ahead and quickened her pace.
When her mother put her arm around her waist, Joe felt herself go limp against her. She didn’t fight it, letting her mother’s hands keep her steady as they walked back down the corridor.
41
The cottage felt too full. Too full of smells—pumpkin pie, roasting turkey, cigarette smoke, and wet dog. Too full of sounds—the murmur of the Lions-Rams game on TV, the whir of the electric beater, the hush of carefully chosen words.
From her place lying on the sofa, Joe could see Brad and her mother in the kitchen. Brad was whipping up the mashed potatoes. Florence had the oven door open, peering at the turkey. They were speaking low, thinking Joe was napping, but their voices carried out to her.
“I think you should have put it in earlier,” Florence said.
“It’s fine,” Brad said.
“It won’t be done in time, Brad. Maybe I should turn it up a little.”
“If you’d stop opening the door every five minutes, it would cook faster, Florence.”
Joe shut her eyes. The tension had been steadily building since her arrival home from the hospital yesterday. That night, when Joe and Brad went to bed, Brad gently helped Joe get undressed. But in bed, they lay there in the dark not talking, listening to Florence, snoring in the small bedroom next door. Finally, Joe moved toward Brad, and he pulled her to his chest. His arms encircled her, but with a strange carefulness, as if he were afraid she would break in two if he held her too hard—or fall into a thousand pieces if he didn’t hold her hard enough.
This morning, she had been awakened by the clatter of pans in the kitchen. Brad told her he wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner. She tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted. He said it would help them get things back to normal. She didn’t ask him what that meant.
From the kitchen now, more hushed voices. Brad telling Florence not to give Chips any scraps. Joe closed her eyes.
She heard footsteps and opened them to see Florence standing over her holding a beer.
“You’re awake,” Florence said. “You want anything?”
Joe shook her head slowly. She started to ease herself up into a sitting position, and Florence was there to rearrange the pillows behind her.
“Ma, let Brad take care of dinner,” Joe said softly.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“I know. But he likes to cook. And I think this makes him feel like he’s…”
“He’s what?” Florence asked when Joe didn’t finish.
“I don’t know, helping,” Joe said.
Florence started to speak, then just sat down in a chair and looked vacantly at the television. She took a sip of beer. “What’s the score?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. The Lions are losing. Reed just threw another interception.”
“Get the pillow ready,” Florence muttered.
Joe smiled slightly, a memory skimming her mind. Nine years old, snuggled in an overstuffed chair with her dad, watching the Browns play the Redskins. Her dad tossing a throw pillow at the TV, missing and knocking over the parakeet’s cage. The Browns won and went to the playoffs. After that, whenever the Browns were losing, her father would heave a pillow at the cage. Both the bird and the Browns made it to two more postseasons. Gerard Frye died a year later.
“Dennis called this morning,” Florence said. “I didn’t want to wake you. He said he’d call back tonight.”
“You told him?” Joe asked, looking at Florence.
Her mother nodded, her eyes locked on the TV. “He was really upset. Then he got really angry,” she said softly. “Said he felt like he wanted to come down here and kill someone.”
Joe shut her eyes. Her brother was just like their father, a man whose big bear appearance hid a tender heart. Joe had a sudden memory of Dennis skidding his bike to a stop to scoop a caterpillar off the pavement and deposit it gently in the grass.
She looked over at Florence, who had a small smile on her face as she watched the game. “What’s so funny, Ma?” she asked.
“I was thinking how much your brother hated football. Your father never got over that.” She shook her head, still smiling. “Thank God you would watch it with him.”
They fell into silence, the shared memory diverging into private ones. The phone rang. Joe heard Brad answer and say something about Joe not being able to come to the phone.
