When they reached the same small, dingy, shuttered house they’d visited the previous evening, Dean noted the beat-up old hatchback in the driveway, as well as a dusty sedan with a smiling laptop logo on the side, and heard Stacey’s slow exhalation. “They’re both here.”
“It’s a rotten part of the job, but you’ll do fine,” he murmured.
When he saw the thin, wasted-looking woman appear in the doorway before they’d even exited the car, however, he had to rethink that. She didn’t look strong enough to carry a gallon of milk, much less hear news of her only child’s murder.
The victim’s mother had obviously heard from her neighbor that the sheriff had come looking for her the previous night. She walked down the steps toward them, looking both hopeful and terrified. “Sheriff?” she called. “You got some news?”
Stacey reached for her hat, which she’d set between the front seats, and put it on her head as she stepped out of the car. It was the first time he’d seen her in it, and somehow it completed the whole image of a strong, in-control professional.
The slight tremble of her lips, however, said a thousand times more about the woman wrapped up in all that professionalism.
His heart twisted in his chest, an unfamiliar sensation that he’d only ever experienced with Jared, when his little boy had been hurt or was afraid. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her, to take this burden from her. But Dean knew he could only cover her back. And be there for the inevitable recriminations and emotional overload once she had done her job and gotten far away from here.
“Can we speak in private?” she asked.
The woman paled, her eyes darting frantically, as if she half expected to see her daughter appear, safe and sound, maybe in handcuffs but okay. Alive. Accounted for.
“Please, Winnie. Let’s go in out of the heat.”
The older woman nodded, twisting her hands in the front of her drab, shapeless housecoat. “All right.”
The house, with its dingy and weather-beaten exterior, was equally as morose on the inside. From the cluttered foyer, he noted that every curtain was drawn, each visible room cast in shadows that defied the bright morning sunshine. As if it weren’t welcome here, as if the whole place were already in mourning.
He supposed it had been, for seventeen months. But for Lisa’s mother, the true mourning was about to begin.
“Winnie, this is Special Agent Dean Taggert, from the FBI.”
He extended his hand. She merely stared at it, as if it were a snake ready to bite. Maybe she thought not acknowledging his presence would forestall the dark news she already sensed was coming.
“Is Stan here?” Stacey asked.
“He’s sleeping. He works nights a lot now.”
“Maybe you should get him.”
“He’ll be mad,” the woman whispered. “Tell me about Lisa.”
Stacey took her hat off, holding it at her side. “We should wait for Stan.”
The two women stared at each other, Stacey resolute, Mrs. Freed visibly afraid. Finally the older woman looked away, knowing in her heart what was coming, wanting to forestall the inevitable moment when reality could no longer be evaded. “I’ll go get him. Have a seat in there,” the woman said, gesturing toward a shadow-filled living room.
They watched her trudge down a hallway, open a door, and descend into what must be a finished basement. Separate bedrooms in the Freed marriage, perhaps?
When she was gone, her slow, aged footsteps growing lighter until they disappeared altogether into the bowels of the house, Dean stepped into the cavelike living room. Cluttered with a mishmash of furniture, it was as hot as an oven despite the closed curtains blocking out the sun. A sad assortment of ceramic figurines covered the surface of the coffee table, shepherds, milkmaids, and farm animals, gathering dust and ignored. The room had an abandoned feel, and he suspected that when Mrs. Freed was in this house, her existence consisted of sleeping, bathing, and eating. Not really living.
Catching sight of a number of framed photographs on the wall above the well-worn couch, he leaned closer. “Lisa?” he murmured, eyeing the sweet-faced little blond-haired girl in school pictures like the ones he had of Jared back at his place.
Stacey joined him, though she looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else. “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was so pretty, so innocent,” he said, having to swallow hard as suddenly something clicked in his brain. He recognized it as the moment that came in almost every case, when the victim became a person. Someone’s loved one, someone’s daughter. “Sad.”
“She was a doll,” Stacey admitted through a throat that sounded tight. “I used to babysit her. Can’t tell you how many puzzles we did together right on that table.”
He jerked his attention from the half dozen photographs of the ponytailed child, and stared at the woman standing so stiffly beside him. Stacey had admitted she knew Lisa, just not how well she’d known her. Realizing how much this had to be personally affecting her, he again felt the urge to put his hands on her shoulders and tug her close to enfold her in his arms. He sensed she didn’t lean on anybody very often.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, knowing he couldn’t reach for her, couldn’t make this personal. Not here, not now.
Not until she made it personal.
“I’ve got to catch whoever did this, Dean.” Her voice shook with angry emotion, her slim body suddenly seeming too fragile to handle the weight that had been dumped on it. “I can’t live the rest of my life without catching him.”
Hearing the depth of her frustration, he couldn’t resist putting one hand out, touching the tips of his fingers lightly to her arm. He wanted her to feel the unvoiced support he was offering her. “We’ll catch him. I promise you.”
She glanced at his hand, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she lifted her own and covered his fingers with her soft, capable ones. And in that moment, the touch, intended to be comforting and impersonal, simply became more. It secured an invisible connection between them, reinforcing his promise that he was here and wouldn’t let this case go unsolved. And underscoring her belief in that promise.
It also acknowledged that they both knew there was some personal force at work between them that went beyond the job, beyond the case. Beyond this room in this house.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Nodding and clearing her throat, she ducked away and turned her back on the photographs, as if unable to stand the innocent eyes that he knew she saw as accusing. Glancing at the floor for a moment, then at the figurines on the table, she suddenly stalked back out of the room to wait in the foyer.
He followed, knowing she couldn’t stand being in that room with those memories.
A moment later, Mrs. Freed returned from the basement of the house, still wearing her faded housecoat, but having pulled her hair back off her thin, bony face. The style emphasized the dark circles under her eyes and the haggard folds of skin hanging on her neck. “He’s comin’.” As if realizing they might be curious about why her spouse was sleeping in the basement, she grudgingly added, “Air’s not very good up here. It’s cooler down there, so he sometimes sleeps on the sofa in his office.”
“Understandable,” Stacey said, shifting on her feet. She obviously hated the delay and wanted to get this over with.
Mrs. Freed glanced toward the room they’d just exited, then at Stacey. “Want to go into the kitchen for a cup of coffee?”
Nodding once, her back stiff, Stacey followed the woman, Dean taking up the rear. Though small, the kitchen appeared immaculately clean. With no shades or curtains to darken it to a tomb, it was better, less cloying than the rest of the place.