David Jackson - Marked

He wants to sigh.

‘How’s the case going?’ asks Rachel.

He’s told her about it. On the phone this afternoon. He let her know he would be home late, and he let her know the reason. Didn’t give her all the details, though. Nothing about Proust, for example.

‘Okay,’ he says. Which is giving her nothing. It’s a shitty response. He knows it, and yet he can’t help it.

He leaves the fish alone and takes up a forkful of potato instead.

‘Did you identify the girl?’

He nods while he chews. ‘Yeah. Her name was Megan Hamlyn. She lived out in Queens. She was only sixteen.’

He thinks, There, see? You can do it. You can have a proper conversation.

‘Oh, God,’ says Rachel. ‘Sixteen. That’s so young.’

She lapses into silence for a while as she contemplates this. Then: ‘You got anything to go on?’

‘A few things. We’ll get him.’

She waits for more. Doesn’t get it.

‘Is that just you giving yourself a pep talk, or do you actually have something concrete?’

He ventures another assault on the fish. Tries teasing out those menacing white barbs. He just knows he’s not going to get them all. One of the little bastards always manages to bury itself deep. It’ll lurk, just waiting for its chance to jump out and impale itself in his cheek or, even worse, lodge in his throat. Why do fish need so many damn bones anyway?

‘We’re close,’ he says.

‘Well, how close? You know who did this? You know where they are? What?’

The answers are in the affirmative. Yes, he knows who did this, and yes, he knows where he is. But if he tells Rachel what he knows, then she’ll go all negative on him. She’ll tell him to back off. She’ll remind him of how it went last time. And he can do without that right now.

‘Rachel, can we change the subject, please?’

He waits for her to snap at him, which she has every right to do. But she doesn’t snap. She sits there, more calmly and patiently than he deserves.

‘How’s the fish?’ she asks, which is certainly a change of subject. Makes him feel guilty, though. He knows she really wants to talk about big, weighty matters, but he has diluted her conversation to the point of dealing with trivia.

‘Bony,’ he says, and then wonders if he has a death wish. He should have said the fish was fine, even though it isn’t. Instead, he has to go and mix it up. That’s the sort of self-destructive mood he’s in today.

Rachel leans across and peers at his dinner. ‘They’re not bones.’

He jabs at his food with his fork. ‘Look.’

‘What, those puny little things? You make it sound like the dinosaur exhibit in the Natural History Museum. You won’t even notice them.’

He begs to differ. He already has noticed them. And if he allows them into his mouth he will notice them even more. But for once he makes the right decision and keeps his objections to himself. Time for another change of topic. Who’d have thought a fish dinner could be the cause of such friction? Bones of contention, if you will.

‘How’s Amy?’

‘Oh, she’s all right.’

Even in his distracted state of mind, Rachel’s tone is not lost on him. It’s a tone that says, Well, actually, she’s not so great.

‘Something happen today?’

‘Yeah. I yelled at her.’

Her voice is tinged with regret, and Doyle blinks in surprise. Rachel almost never loses her temper with Amy.

‘You yelled at her? Why?’

‘She had some things. In her schoolbag. Things that don’t belong to her.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Pens, erasers, rulers — that kind of thing. I think they belong to the school.’

‘Did you ask her about them?’

‘Of course I did. I sat her down and I asked her. I gave her every opportunity to explain how they got there.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said she didn’t know they were even in her bag. Said she’d never seen them before.’

‘Okay, so maybe somebody else put them there.’

Rachel shakes her head. ‘No. She wasn’t telling the truth, Cal. Amy’s a terrible liar.’

Doyle puts down his fork. ‘Rachel, have you heard yourself? You’re calling our daughter a liar and a thief. How can you say such-’

‘I didn’t say she was a thief. I said she knows more about this than she’s saying. And I’d like you to back me up on this, please.’

‘Back you up how?’

‘By talking to her. By asking her how she got hold of that stuff.’

‘She’s seven years old, Rachel. She’s not a criminal mastermind. She doesn’t need me giving her the third degree over some little mistake she’s made.’

‘She’s old enough to know right from wrong, Cal. And when she gets confused over that, it’s up to us to set her straight.’

‘Okay, tell you what — why don’t I haul her into the station house and take her fingerprints and stick her in the cells? You think that’ll teach her?’

Rachel slumps back in her chair, her mouth working like she doesn’t know what sounds to make with it next.

‘Why are you being like this? I’m asking you to have a quiet word with her. Father to daughter. It doesn’t have to be a confrontation. I just want you to-’

‘There’s no evidence, Rachel. She says she’s done nothing wrong, so I think we should believe her. I can’t go accusing her just because-’

He stops then. Stops because he realizes things are getting all jumbled up in his head. He’s talking to Rachel about Amy, but in his mind he’s working on the murder case. He’s saying things that Rachel would probably say to him if he told her how he was going after Proust. That’s how much of a hold Proust has on him. He knows things won’t be normal again until he nails that sonofabitch.

He pushes his chair back and stands up. ‘I gotta go out.’

Rachel stares at him. ‘What do you mean? Why do you need to go out all of a sudden?’

‘I just do. Something I forgot to do on the case.’

‘And now it comes to you? Right in the middle of your dinner? Right when we’re having a conversation about something important like this?’

‘I won’t be long,’ he says.

He starts to head out of the room. Behind him he hears Rachel muttering something about how he should eat more fish because it might do his stupid brain some good.

The rain has subsided to a light drizzle. Doyle is glad, because it will make it easier to see. To make doubly sure, he winds down the window of his car. Then he kills the engine. Then he waits.

It’s not the same, he tells himself. Proust and Amy. Two totally different kettles of fish — there we go with the fish again. Amy has made an innocent mistake of some kind. No big deal. It’ll be cleared up in no time.

Proust, on the other hand. .

See, you had to be there. You had to be the one who spent hours talking to Proust. Getting into his head. Getting to know how his mind works. Getting to understand how an apparently normal guy could commit such a heinous act. Explaining this to other people doesn’t cut it. You can tell people what you believe as many times as you like, but they’re never going to be convinced. Not without further proof.

And, if he’s to be honest, why should they accept his word? Would he act any differently if it were another cop laying down conclusions like this?

But they weren’t there. They didn’t see.

They didn’t see the bloated naked body of Alyssa Palmer, draped over the river-washed rocks below the Henry Hudson Parkway. They didn’t see the heart-splitting expressions on the faces of Alyssa’s parents when he had to inform them that their daughter had been found. Dead. Tortured. Raped. And they didn’t see the coldness in Proust’s eyes when confronted with these facts, these images. When Proust looked down at the photo of Alyssa, there was no recoil — not even a grimace or an out-breath of sorrow. Doyle knew then that this was his man.