He had a list of the girls from this house on a page in his notebook. Holly Johnson, Jennifer Porter, Sarah McCoy, Natalie Witman, Heather Ortiz, and Renee Paquin. He had added the name Renee Paquin last night. The name that had been written in marker on the laundry bag he had taken the panties from.
At the reminder of her name he could smell her. He could taste her pussy. He wished he had her panties with him now so he could put them in his mouth again and suck on them. He set his camera aside on the passenger seat, then reached inside his open fly. He fondled himself even as he watched the lithe tennis player walk away down the street.
If he was lucky, she was Renee Paquin. He remembered seeing tennis clothes in the laundry bag.
As she turned the corner and walked out of sight, he stopped playing with himself, zipped his pants, and cleaned his hands with a moist towelette. Then he took a moment to jot a few notes in his book.
He was very organized and methodical by nature. Even as a small child he had always kept his possessions and his thoughts compartmentalized and orderly. His notes were a reflection of his nature. His handwriting was small and precise, his observations meticulous.
He used only quality materials, purchasing his notebooks and pens in an art supply store. The paper was slightly thicker and more absorbent of the ink than that of cheaper notebooks available in common retail outlets. The pens he used were the ultrafine-point pens favored by architects.
In fact, he had stolen pens from the home of the Lawtons in Santa Barbara. Lance Lawton had been a well-respected architect. Roland had enjoyed using his pens.
At the top of the page he had written the address of the sorority house and had made a detailed description of the house—not just what it looked like, but where it sat on the block, how it was situated on the lot, what the landscaping was like, the sight lines to the neighboring houses.
To the right side of the page he had made a small, very detailed sketch of the house, and beneath the sketch had made a very precise overhead line drawing of the lot, the garage, the house, where the doors were located, the location of the windows, and so on.
On the lower left side of the page he had printed the names of the girls he knew resided in the house, and noted what kind of mail they had received on the days he had looked in the mailbox.
Jennifer Porter: 1 picture postcard from Lucerne, Switzerland. Dated June 27, 1990. Handwritten note states: Wish you were here. The guys are gorgeous and so is Switzerland. Love, Denise.
Sarah McCoy: Envelope from Physicians Group of Oak Knoll. Possibly a bill.
Natalie Witman: 1 Hallmark card in purple envelope. Return address: M. Dorne, 1128 Via Morada, Paso Robles, CA 93446. 1 postcard appointment reminder from Bright Smile Dentistry stating: We’ll see you on July 22 at 10:30 AM! Alternate spelling of name on maiclass="underline" “Whitman.”
And so on.
Now Roland turned to a fresh page and carefully printed: Renee Paquin? Tall. 5’7” to 5’9”. Slender. Small breasted. Long legs. Tan. Straight dark brown/black hair to mid-back, worn loose or in ponytail. Plays the violin. Plays tennis.
He blew lightly across the page to make certain the ink was dry before he closed the notebook and returned it to his messenger bag on the passenger’s seat. Then he started the van and pulled away from the curb, heading for the tennis courts.
18
I read once that we are all born with instincts to protect ourselves and our loved ones, and then society spends every day drumming those instincts out of us until we’re too cowed by good manners to save our own lives.
The children of my generation were taught to respect our elders, not to talk back, not to make a scene in public. We were taught to be polite, to answer when asked a question, to be helpful to anyone who needed us.
Up until the time Leslie was taken, I don’t know if I could have brought myself to scream if I had felt threatened by a stranger. I would have been much more apt to talk myself out of my fear. I could almost hear my mother’s voice in my ear, chastening me for overreacting. What would people think? I would embarrass the other person and myself for no good reason.
Women of my mother’s generation especially were raised to minimize their feelings. They were taught by society that as women they were overemotional, prone to hysteria, and flighty to the point of ridiculousness.
As plain as if he was here in the room with me, I can hear my father speaking to my mother: Don’t be silly. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re overreacting. You shouldn’t feel this way. You shouldn’t think that way.
The day Leslie went missing, I knew as soon as I walked in the house that something was wrong. Not just amiss, but wrong, badly wrong. There was no reason for me to feel that way. I told myself I was just on edge because of the tension with Leslie.
I had escaped the house that afternoon to go to a job site. Judith Ivory was redecorating her beach house. To spend a few hours trying to argue Judith away from her own bad taste had seemed far preferable to staying home and dealing with my oldest daughter’s bad humor.
I knew Leslie well. I knew she would spend the day pouting in her room, coming out to inflict her sour mood on the rest of us at lunchtime and snack time. By dinnertime she would start to soften. By bedtime she would be contrite—if not the first day of being grounded, certainly by the end of the second. Then she would begin her clever, insidious campaign to wiggle her way back into the good graces of her father and me.
It wouldn’t go so easily this time, I knew. Leslie was making a stand for her independence, and Lance was making a stand for his absolute authority. A clash of the Titans. Life in the Lawton house was going to be a prickly affair for a few days.
I felt the worst for Leah, my sweet sensitive one. My peacekeeper. She had done nothing wrong, but was as much of a prisoner as her guilty sister. We would not be going out as a family again any time soon. And Leah would restrict herself from going out with her friends in an attempt not to rub Leslie’s nose in the consequences of her own wrongdoing—a courtesy Leslie did not deserve and would probably not have returned if the situation was reversed.
I felt the worst for Leah, and yet I had taken the chance to flee the hostilities, leaving her to deal with her sister alone. I felt some guilt for that, but I also knew the tension would be much less without me there, and that Leslie would soften to Leah long before she softened toward Lance or me.
I expected them to both be in the family room when I got home, watching a movie or playing video games, or out by the pool sunning themselves and reading fashion magazines. Life in the Lawton Correctional Facility was pretty cushy.
But when I walked into the kitchen through the laundry room door, laden down with fabric samples and wallpaper books, I stopped dead. The house was silent, and a sensation of dread went down my back like a cold, bony finger.
I discounted it, as I had been trained to do. I didn’t even call out to the girls to reassure myself. I went into my workroom off the kitchen and put the sample books on the table. I would come back after dinner and write up my notes regarding the Ivorys’ beach house. But even as I forced myself to do something normal, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I felt tense to the point that I jumped when Leah came to the workroom door.