It was the only way I knew of regaining the shore, my life, and Gail.
The phone by my chair rang in the predawn darkness. I’d fallen asleep, and my startled reaction sent an electric bolt of pain through my stomach. Gail’s voice was sharp, on edge, wavering between anger and concern. “Joe, what are you doing here? I just got a call from Leo. You left the hospital without checking out.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I meant to call as soon as I got home, but I got sidetracked, and then I just forgot. I nodded off.”
“What’s wrong?”
I remembered how we’d parted and wished I had something more concrete to tell her, something that would cool the rage I’d felt then. But I didn’t have that yet, and perhaps I never would. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I came back to answer some questions for myself-things I wasn’t able to do after I was stabbed.”
“The trial’s already begun, Joe.” Her voice was almost pleading.
“I know that, and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be happening. I just never got a chance to finish my job, and I need to do that.”
“You don’t think he raped me?” She was trying to be more matter-of-fact, forcing her intellect to rule her emotions.
“The evidence says he did. I need to know it’s right.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then we go from there.”
“Damn you,” she shouted, “don’t you know what that means?”
I started to answer, but then stopped. I only knew what it meant to me. “Tell me,” I said instead.
“That whoever it was is still out there-that it’s all been a waste of time.”
I remembered her sensitivity to sudden noises, her constant checking of locked doors, her insomnia, her apprehension of the outdoors or of being left alone. It was true that much of it had been born from the turbulence surrounding the trauma and would eventually subside. But what I’d somehow ignored was plain, old-fashioned fear-that what had happened might happen again, especially if we’d caught the wrong guy.
Still, I persisted. “Gail, if he is still out there, then that’s what we need to know, right? You don’t necessarily want Bob Vogel hung out to dry-you want the guy who raped you.”
I could hear her breathing hard, almost panting, trying to harness her agitation. “And you’re saying they’re not one and the same.”
“I’m saying I don’t know. Right now, Bob Vogel fits the bill.” I rubbed my forehead, wishing I had something else to offer. “I can’t tell you more than that, Gail. I’m sorry. I would’ve liked to have settled all this without troubling you, but I’ve got to do it-for your sake, too. It won’t work any other way.”
I paused, waiting, finally wondering if she was still on the line, and then I heard her sobbing-something she’d almost never done in all the years I’d known her. I gripped the receiver tighter, riled by my inability to reach out and lend her comfort.
“I’m not in control of anything anymore,” she said after a long pause. “My emotions are all over the place, I’m scared of everything, I can’t focus on my work. I tried to turn this into a way to help other women, but I couldn’t get over my own fears. I tried taking care of you, but you healed and I felt abandoned. I was hoping to use the trial as a way to get better, and now you tell me you’re not sure he’s the right man. And in the news, I’m an ‘alleged’ victim, as if even that might be taken away. I worry sometimes that I’m just spinning away-that I’ll just disappear.”
“Can Susan help?” I asked softly.
Gail took a deep, shuddering breath. “She is. She’s trying. I’m seeing a therapist again. I’ve got good support. It’s what I should’ve done from the start. I just thought I could get a handle on it sooner.”
“Knowing that must help a little. Would you like me to come over?”
“No-I’m all right. How ’bout you?” she asked, surprising me.
“I’m fine. A little sore. I’m not doing anything strenuous.”
There was a moment of silence, during which we contemplated everything we hadn’t addressed. “You’re pretty sure he didn’t do it, aren’t you?” she finally asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I chased down two ideas last night, and neither one of them proved anything. All I’ve got are a bunch of little bells ringing in my head, telling me not to let this one go.”
She sighed again, and I added, “You’re still at Susan’s, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have Tony send someone over today to install some dead bolts and window locks. Maybe they’ll help you feel a little more secure.”
“Mary Wallis gave me a gun-a nine millimeter.”
I didn’t like that, but I knew now wasn’t the time to say so. “You know how to use it?”
She let out a small, humorless laugh. “Secrets of my hidden past. My dad taught me when I was little. We used to shoot at cans and light bulbs at my aunt’s farm in Connecticut. I got pretty good at it.”
“Well, be careful. You want those locks?”
“Thank you… Joe?”
“What’s up?”
“You’re still digging into this because of what you said, right? It’s not something else-something you’re not telling me?”
How well she knew me. “I just want to make sure the job’s been done right.”
I sat in my car across from Bob Vogel’s derelict trailer, staring in disbelief at what the passage of a few weeks had wrought. The door and several windows were missing; clothing, soiled sheets, magazines, plates, even a few pieces of broken furniture littered the frozen ground. A stained, broken-back sofa lay on the sagging wooden steps leading to the gaping front door, as if it had been shot trying to escape.
I crossed the yard gingerly, noticing the shredded remnants of the plastic yellow “police line” tape we routinely use to seal off a property-obviously to great effect. The vandals, as usual, had been inordinately capricious in their choices, breaking some items of limited value, stealing others that made no sense. Going through the trailer, I worked both from memory and from a copy of one of Ron’s files that listed the place’s entire contents, complete with “general scene” photographs. Tony Brandt’s box was proving to be a gift from heaven.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t find the one item I was after.
I stopped short of the doorway before leaving the trailer twenty minutes later and peered surreptitiously across the yard to the neighboring trailer-the one housing the consumptive scarecrow who’d directed me to the Barrelhead when I’d first visited the neighborhood. A curtain moved slightly as soon as I stepped into the anemic sunlight.
I walked over and pounded on the rattly metal door.
“Who is it?” The voice was as I remembered it-raspy, wet, and ruined.
“You know damn well who it is. Open up.”
The door swung back with a rusty complaint, and Vogel’s bedraggled, bearded, reed-thin neighbor glared out at me with bloodshot eyes, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. I showed him my badge.
He coughed, as if under attack by the fresh air. “What do you want?”
“Talk. Can I come in?”
He stepped aside, and I entered a virtual wall of stench, thick enough to make my eyes water.
“What about?”
I glanced around quickly and pointed to a mildewed dish rack by his sink. “That, for one thing.”
He stared at it in astonishment. I pointed at a cracked oval mirror leaning against the wall near an armchair with three legs. “And that, too.”
He swiveled his head like a spectator at a tennis match. “What about ’em?”
“They belong to Bob Vogel. You stole them.” I showed him the photographs, placing my finger on each item.
He swallowed hard and glanced at the door, as if contemplating flight. Then he looked at me defiantly. “I didn’t start it. I just got what the others left behind.”
I didn’t believe that for a moment. “I’m sure that’s true. So I’ll let you off the hook. But I want a favor. I want to see the alarm clock he had by his bed.”