Ridley Pearson - The First Victim

‘‘And then some,’’ he answered.

‘‘And waits until Coughlie is indicted to tell us?’’

‘‘If he hadn’t been indicted, we’d have never gotten the call. She’s not an angel. She’s a politician. She’s buying herself a future break. . and she’ll get it.’’

‘‘But Coughlie could have used Melissa to plea bargain. How stupid can you get?’’

Boldt said, ‘‘Depends on what’s left of her. How much Coughlie knows. A jury might not be too sympathetic.’’

‘‘Torture?’’

‘‘They wanted that tape badly. I imagine that’s what kept her alive until our friend stepped in.’’

‘‘These people are not human beings.’’

‘‘That’s the way they think. That’s where it all starts.’’

She nodded. ‘‘She’s alive,’’ she gasped.

They drove past neighborhoods where the houses all looked the same and the cars were the same. Big groups of sameness. He felt bothered and anxious.

‘‘Another example of the wonderful cooperation between media and law enforcement.’’

She laughed out loud. ‘‘You win!’’

‘‘No one wins,’’ he said. ‘‘Not ever.’’ He pulled the car to a stop, a patrol vehicle parking alongside of him. The sign said NUDE GIRLS. The two-story building was painted Cape Cod gray and had enough parking for a convention center. ‘‘Are you prepared for this-for what we might find?’’

‘‘No,’’ she admitted. ‘‘Are you?’’

‘‘Gloves?’’ Boldt said, handing her a pair.

‘‘I’m not wearing gloves,’’ Stevie replied, handing them back, hurrying from the car. ‘‘Come on!’’

Boldt produced the warrant, but the uniforms led the way inside. It smelled foul, a combination of air freshener and human hell.

‘‘She had a shaved head when she came in,’’ Boldt told the obese manager, a sweaty man who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get up out of the worn red couch. He was drinking a dark cocktail on the rocks. He smoked a thin foul cigar with a white plastic tip.

McNeal took off up the stairs. Boldt indicated for a uniform to follow her. He turned and climbed the stairs himself, leaving another uniform by the door. ‘‘No one goes anywhere,’’ he told the kid. He remembered being that young-remembered the feel of the gun on his belt and the smell of the leather. He climbed the stairs heavily.

Stevie opened one door after another-bare buttocks, sweating flesh. A salesman’s suit carefully arranged on a chair. The smell of pot and booze and familiarity. The uniform lingered a little too long at each door. Stevie moved faster and faster. Nine doors. No Melissa.

Her movements became frantic. She felt tears in her eyes and tension in every limb. An ache so deep inside her-an ache only a woman understood. Another flight of stairs. She ran now, out of breath, nearly out of life. The uniform lumbered up behind her, but she turned to see it was Boldt.

‘‘Easy,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t want to scare her.’’

‘‘Scare her?’’ she barked back at him, incredulous.

‘‘Just go easy,’’ he repeated. He fired down to the uniform, ‘‘Where the hell are the EMTs? Get on the horn!’’

‘‘EMTs?’’ Stevie whined, now slowing as she reached the third floor.

Boldt handed her the gloves again, his arm outstretched. ‘‘Be smart,’’ he said.

She accepted them limply. ‘‘Oh, God. .’’

They both paused by the only door that was locked.

Boldt whispered, ‘‘She mustn’t see anything but joy in your face. You understand how important that is?’’

Tears spilled down from her swollen eye.

‘‘Freedom is a fragile thing,’’ he said.

She nodded faintly.

‘‘Are you ready?’’ he said, his shoulder against the door.

She struggled with the gloves, sniffled and drew in a deep breath. But the tears would not abate. Her shoulders shook. Her throat tightened. She nodded. ‘‘I’m ready,’’ she said.

Boldt broke open the door.

‘‘Thank God!’’ Stevie McNeal whimpered, running inside and falling to her knees.

The late October sun played low and soft on the horizon, reminding Stevie McNeal of the yellow headlights on cars in Paris. She had thought about traveling, but it wasn’t right yet for either of them. ‘‘You see the sailboat?’’

Melissa didn’t answer. She didn’t rock the rocker. She just sat there staring out blankly.

Corwin had been good enough to loan them the cabin indefinitely. Marsh grass fluttered in the strong breeze that accompanied every sunset. A sturdy stand of cedar stood at water’s edge like a wall.

She gave Melissa a bath every evening before bed, like a mother with her child. She soaped the skin where they’d used cigarettes to burn her, she cleaned the loins they had soiled with their filth. But she couldn’t reach the woman’s thoughts, couldn’t clean there. They were trying a combination of massage, acupuncture and therapy. A woman psychiatrist recommended by Matthews made the ferry ride to the island twice a week. She said she was encouraged, but Stevie wasn’t buying it. For all she could tell there had been no change whatsoever.

Melissa ate, though precious little. Stevie supplemented her diet with one of those chocolate drinks intended for the elderly. They slept together in the same bed because the nightmares and sweats could be horrible, and Stevie wanted to be right there when she was needed. The night before Melissa had crept across the bed in her sleep and had snuggled up to Stevie and had cried for the better part of an hour, though Stevie didn’t think she’d ever been awake. Maybe it was an improvement; she intended to tell the shrink about it. The word was that she would come back slowly. Maybe the crying was a step forward, maybe a step back. Stevie wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

She brought her a cardigan sweater and helped it around her bone-thin shoulders and stroked her cheek with the back of her hand and said, ‘‘I love you, Little Sister,’’ as she did so many times each day. Love was what would heal. Stevie knew this. She trusted it. ‘‘You’re safe here,’’ she said, a knot in her throat.

Melissa reached up, took her hand and pulled it into her lap. Stevie dropped to her knees, tears coming now, for this was the first time anything like this had happened. It wasn’t much, granted; but to Stevie it meant the world. She whispered to the woman in the rocker, ‘‘Every journey begins with but a single step.’’ No reaction. Nothing.

Stevie started the rocker gently rocking. She thought Melissa liked that. She wasn’t sure. She kneeled uncomfortably, but kept her hand there in her sister’s lap, the grip weak but intentional. She wasn’t going to move. She could barely breathe.

The sun became a yellow eye and then winked them into dusk. Stevie’s legs went numb with the kneeling, and her arm fell asleep to where it was a bundle of needles. But she didn’t move, didn’t speak. The darkness played out on the western sky and the first stars appeared.

‘‘The first stars are the strongest,’’ Stevie said.

Nothing. No reaction whatsoever.

‘‘As long as it takes,’’ she whispered.

Still nothing.

The moon rose behind them and threw shadows into the trees. A satellite crossed the sky. Stevie watched as Melissa’s dark eyes followed it higher. And then she noticed the rocker was still moving and realized that she was not the one driving it.

‘‘I’ll get dinner going,’’ she said, reluctantly pulling her hand free. There would be other chances to hold hands; she would make sure of that. She stood, her tingling legs barely able to support her. The rocker continued to move. She backed up slowly across the porch, supporting herself against the shingled wall, unable to take her eyes off that slowly moving chair. A month earlier a rocking chair moving like that wouldn’t have meant anything to her.