That’s the trouble, I thought. The poet, whoever he was, said no man is an island, but nowadays every man and woman is one. A whole goddamn continent, the way some of them act. It’s a wonder that they all don’t sink to the bottom of the ocean, just like the lost continent of Atlantis is supposed to have done.
V
I wanted to drive by the house on Naples Street, just to see what it looked like in the daylight. The rain had stopped, but it was still a soppy, gray morning. The house looked shabby and sodden. There was a yellow plastic police line strip across the driveway, and a man in a tan raincoat stood on the front steps, hands in his pockets, staring at nothing in particular.
He didn’t look like a cop. He was middle-aged, middle height, a little gray, a little bald. His glasses and the cut of his coat were the kind you used to associate with the movers and shakers of the 1980’s financial world, but the coat was rumpled and had a grease stain near its hem, and as I got out of the Wreck and went closer, I saw that one hinge of the glasses frame was wired together. His face pulled down in disappointed lines that looked permanent. Welcome to the nineties, I thought.
The man’s eyes focused dully on me. “If you’re a reporter,” he said, “you’d better speak with the officers in charge of the case.” He spoke with a kind of diluted authority, his words turning up in a question, as if he wasn’t quite sure who or what he was any longer.
“I’m not a reporter.” I took out my i.d. and explained my connection to the case.
The man looked at the i.d., nodded, and shrugged. Then he sighed. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it? I wish I’d never rented to them.”
“This is your house?”
“My mother’s. She’s in a nursing home. I can’t sell it-she still thinks she’s coming back someday. That’s all that’s keeping her alive. I can’t fix it up, either.” He motioned at the peeling façade. “My business has been in a flat-out slump for a couple of years now, and the nursing home’s expensive. I rented to the first couple who answered my ad. Bad judgment on my part. They were too young, and into God-knows-what.” He laughed mirthlessly, then added, “Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. Ron Owens.”
I’d inched up the steps toward the open front door until I was standing next to him. I shook his outstretched hand and repeated my name for him.
Owens sighed again and stared glumly at the wet street. “It’s a hell of a world.” He said. “A hell of a thing when a kid dies like that. Kids are supposed to grow up, have a life. At least outlive their parents.” Then he looked at me, “You said the girl’s mother hired you?”
“Yes. I haven’t come up with any leads, and she’s getting frantic. I thought maybe if I could see the house…” I motioned at the door.
For a moment Owens hesitated. “What the hell-they said they were done there. Come on in, if you want.”
I followed him into a narrow hallway that ran the length of the cottage. “Were you here when they found the girl’s backpack?’
“Did that belong to her? Yeah. I came over and let them in as soon as they contacted me. First time I’d been here since the kids rented it. Place is a mess. I’m glad I stored most of my mother’s things in the sheds and only left the basic furnishing. They didn’t exactly trash it, but they didn’t keep it, either.”
Mess was the word for it. Dust-both natural and from finger-print powder saturated all the surfaces, and empty glasses and plates stood among the bottles and cans and full ashtrays in the front room. Owens led me back past a bathroom draped in crumpled and mildewy-smelling towels and a bedroom where the sheets and blankets were mostly on the floor, to a kitchen. It contained more dirty crockery and glassware. Wrappings from frozen entrees and fast food overflowed the trashcan. A half-full fifth of Jim Beam stood uncapped on the counter. The entire place reeked.
“The cops went through everything?” I asked.
“Yeah. They didn’t think anybody had been here for a while. At least not last night. There weren’t any muddy footprints inside, and the door was blocked by a few days’ worth of newspapers.”
“Where did they find the backpack?”
“Front room. I’ll show you.”
The table where the backpack had been was just inside the living room door. What was left there was junk mail and ad sheets-the sort of stuff you drag inside with you and dump someplace until you get around to throwing it out. “So,” I said, “this was where she’d leave the pack when she arrived. But why not pick it up again when she left?”
Ron Owens made a funny choking sound, and I realized he’d jumped to the obvious conclusion. “No,” I said quickly, “the cops would have found evidence if she was killed here. Did you see what was in the pack?”
He shook his head. “One of them said something about there being no money or i.d.”
Adrian had been smart, carrying her cash and i.d. someplace else where it wouldn’t be snatched if somebody grabbed the pack on the street or on the bus. Smart, too, because if she’d had to run out of this house suddenly-if Kirby had frightened or threatened her, as Sue Hanford had suggested-she’d at least have had the essentials on her.
I’d seen enough here, so I thanked Owens and gave him one of my cards in case he thought of anything else. I was halfway down the front walk when I remembered to ask him I could see the sheds where he’d stored his mother’s things.
For a moment he looked puzzled at the request, then he shrugged and fished a key ring from his pocket. “Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to check them.”
We ducked under the police line tape and went up the driveway. The trees dripped on the muddy ground where Kirby’s car had been parked. There were deep gouges and tracks were the tow truck had hauled it out. Other than that, you would never have known that anything unusual had happened there. It was just an ordinary backyard that the weeds and blackberry vines were trying to reclaim.
Ron Owens fit a key into the padlock on the first shed. Unfastened it and then the hasp. The door grated as he opened it.
There was nothing inside. Nothing at all except for a little heap of wood scraps.
Owens’ face went slack with surprise. Then bright red splotches blossomed on his cheeks. “They cleaned me out,” he said. “Check the other shed.”
We hurried back there. Owens opened it. Nothing except for some trash drifted in the corners.
“But how did they…?” He held up his key ring. “I had the only…There were no other keys.”
I looked closely at the padlock. Cheap brand, more pickable than most. My boyfriend Willie would have had that off of there in five minutes, max-and he’s out of practice. Willie’s a respectable businessman now, but there are things in his past that are best not discussed.
“You better call the police,” I told Owens.
He nodded, shoulders slumping. “I’m glad my mother will never have to find out about this,” he said. “Her good china, Grandma’s silver, the family pictures-all gone. For the first time I’m glad she’s never coming home. There’s no home left here anymore.”
I watched Owens hurry down the drive to a car with a mobile phone antenna on its trunk. I knew how he felt. For me, the word “home” has a magical aura. Sometimes I can actually see it-velvety green like the plants in my nest at All Souls, gold and wine-red like the flames in a good fire. Silly, but that’s the way it is for me. Probably for all of us people who’ve never had a real home of our own.