Laura Lippman - I'd Know You Anywhere

“Your dad eats even less than you,” remarked the waitress.

“I’m not her dad,” Walter said, and something in his voice made the waitress flinch. He softened his tone. “I’m her brother. She was a change-of-life baby, and now our parents are dead and all we have is each other.”

“That’s…nice. Real nice.”

They went upstairs. Eliza reveled in the shower, the nicest she’d had in weeks, although she had to put back on her dirty old clothes. The bedspread was wonderful, too, an old-fashioned white one with a raised design. It had been almost a week since she had been in a real bed, and she fell asleep quickly, the television humming in the background. She wasn’t sure what time it was when she awoke to find Walter standing over her.

“Turn over,” he said.

She did, even as she said, “Please don’t, Walter. Please?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to. But I’ll put some music on.” He picked up the remote, flicking through the channels until he found MTV. Madonna singing “Lucky Star.” “You like this one, right?” He turned her so she could face it, but she shut her eyes tight, not wanting to see anything, remember anything.

He was behind her. She had read a book one time, one of the best dirty books ever, where a woman’s boyfriend was always turning her over, and it was revealed that he really liked boys. But she didn’t think that was what was going on with Walter. He was having trouble. He was having a lot of trouble. “Dammit,” he said a time or two, arranging and rearranging her limbs, talking to her body the way he sometimes berated his tools during one of his handyman jobs. Eventually, he found his way. It hurt so much that she could not imagine that it ever wouldn’t, that anyone would do this voluntarily. His mouth was next to her ear, her neck, but he didn’t kiss her, and his arms were braced on either side of her, as if he were doing push-ups. He seemed to be holding his breath. Finally, he gave a little yelp, more surprised than anything else. Madonna was still singing, rolling across the floor, sending up thanks for her lucky star.

“I’m sorry,” he said for the second time. She was crying, her face pressed into what had been the most wonderful bed in the world and was now the worst.

The next day, he was absentminded again, but she stopped helping him, retreating into her own trancelike state. They stopped at a grocery store and ended up having a fight over a box of cookies. He relented and let her have them, but not before pushing her hard enough that she stumbled and went down to her knees. Shortly after they crossed the Potomac into Maryland, he was pulled over for driving too slowly, and if he thought he had anything to fear from the state police, he sure didn’t act that way.

“Who’s the young lady?” the officer asked.

“Elizabeth Lerner,” Walter said. “I’m taking her home. She’s been missing, a runaway, but I’ve convinced her to go home.”

Did he expect the trooper to wave him through? He didn’t seem the least bit perturbed as the trooper walked back to his car, made a call on his radio. Before Elizabeth knew what was happening, Walter was on the ground, his hands above his head, and the state trooper was shouting at him not to move, even as he assured Elizabeth that she was going to be all right, that she was safe now.

And she started to cry. Because she was safe. Or, perhaps, because she realized she would never be safe again.

“THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,”told Walter now. “You raped Maude. You tried to rape Holly.” Walter was gripping the bars. She wished she had something to grip. She wished she hadn’t refused the offer of a chair, but it would be weak to ask for it now. Besides, she didn’t want to engage the deputy. It was strange enough that he was watching them.

“I couldn’t. With the others. I tried, but it never worked. The first one—she laughed at me, and after that, I never could. Except with you.”

This was her opening. “Maude wasn’t the first one.” Tentative, yet determined.

“No.”

“Who was?”

He held up a hand. “Before I tell you what I promised to tell you, Elizabeth, I want you to think about the penultimate night.” He was obviously pleased with himself, if only for the use of penultimate .

“I’d really prefer not to.”

“It’s important.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Important to me, then. You went to sit in the truck.”

“You told me to go sit in the truck.”

“I gave you the keys. You locked yourself in. The doors were still locked when I came back to the truck. I knocked on the window, and you let me in. You sat there the entire time.”

“What else could I have done? I couldn’t drive, and I couldn’t climb down that mountain in the dark.”

“You told the prosecutors that you saw Holly running, me following.”

“Yes. First I heard her—she screamed. Then you shouted, like you were in pain. I always assumed she had done something to you.”

“Clawed at my eyes. Someone taught her that. Some women, they go for the—” It was almost comical, how he gestured at his crotch, failing to find a word he considered proper or impressive enough. “It’s better to go for the eyes. Tell your daughter that.”

“Do not talk about my daughter.”

“Okay, okay. Just trying to be helpful.” He held up his hands to signal his supplication. “Yes, I probably did scream, although I don’t remember that. Here’s what I do remember, that’s a lot more important: I didn’t go after Holly.”

“You did. I saw you.”

“No you didn’t. Not if you were locked in that truck. The truck was parked on the far side of the tent, Elizabeth, away from the flap. Holly didn’t run toward it—probably because she didn’t trust you to help her—”

“That’s not fair, Walter.”

“We’re way beyond fair now. She ran toward the trees, toward the darkness. You couldn’t have seen her. And you didn’t see me chase her, because I didn’t . I was trying to find her, to help her—”

“You called her name. I heard that. And then she screamed. I heard that, too.”

“But you didn’t see me chase her, because I didn’t. All these years, that never occurred to me. I didn’t think about where the truck was. And you were so adamant in your testimony, so unwavering.”

And so determined to say what the adults wanted to hear . This was true. She had resolved not to disappoint anyone again, not to let anyone know how cowardly she had been. Yet there was the image in her mind’s eye, an image that had tortured her for years, that flash of white, Holly’s streaming hair. Walter had been right behind her, almost close enough to grab that banner of hair. Hadn’t he?

“She fell off that mountain, just like I said. All these years, I didn’t see how I could get anyone to believe me, because there you were, telling people I chased her, that you saw it. But then Barbara came along, began looking at things, reconstructing things. She was the one who realized it couldn’t be the way you said. She was the one who said I had to find you, get you to tell the truth. You probably didn’t even know you weren’t telling the truth. They brainwashed you.”

“If anyone brainwashed me, it was you,” she said. “You intimidated me to the point that you could trust me to do anything. I was scared all the time. Scared enough that I went and sat in the truck because you told me to. So scared that I didn’t try to get away from you, no matter how many chances I had.”

“Well, if you could be brainwashed by me, you could be convinced by other people, too, right? You always were susceptible, Elizabeth. You wanted to do what other people wanted you to do. First me, then the lawyers. There’s no shame in that.”