Faye Kellerman - Sacred and Profane

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think she’d do it.”

“Do you think Chris could have talked her into it?”

“No. He wouldn’t do something like that. Nudes are one thing. Being fucked like a baboon in heat is quite another.”

She gave him a suggestive smile. Decker ignored it.

“Did you know that Lindsey kept a diary?” he asked.

The girl didn’t respond.

“ Erin?”

“What?”

“Did you know that Lindsey kept a diary?”

“Oh?”

“Do you have it, Erin?”

Again, she didn’t answer.

“Why don’t you level with me?” Decker said gently.

“Yeah, I have it,” she said. “I took it when it was clear Lindsey wasn’t coming back. I didn’t want my mother to find it. Are you gonna tell her?”

“I’m afraid I have to,” Decker said.

The girl angrily squashed her cigarette into an ashtray and clenched her jaw.

“Oh shit! Grounded for weeks. I mean, Mom asked me if I knew where it was and I out and lied to her. But my motivation was altruistic, you know?”

“How so?”

“I knew what was in there-her and Chris. I mean, she read passages to me, the lovemaking passages. It was pretty graphic. I didn’t want my mom to be mad at Lindsey, you know? ’Cause she was really a nice sister. And I kept on thinking Lindsey would come back home, so why have Mom on her case as well as my own? Also, I didn’t want Lindsey to think I was a snitch and a snoop and be disappointed in me. Shit, I can’t believe she’s really…gone. I keep thinking she’s away at summer camp and’ll be home any day now.”

She sniffed back tears.

“But she won’t, will she?”

Decker shook his head.

She threw the pack of cigarettes across the room.

“Friggin’ awful,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you going to do with the diary?” she asked.

“We hope it’ll help us out in our investigation.”

“It won’t. I know what’s in there. Just a lot of very personal stuff.”

“Sometimes something very minor turns out to be very important.”

The girl went over to one of her books, pulled out a false spine and extracted a pink vinyl-covered pocket book trimmed in gold.

“Here,” she said, giving it to Decker. “She wrote a couple of nasty things about Mom and Dad and me. But she wasn’t really like that at all. They were written in anger and I’ve forgiven her. I mean really, I know I’m not beautiful, but I’m no bag-lady either.” She looked to Decker for confirmation.

“You’re a very pretty teenager, Erin,” he said calmly.

She blushed. “No, really…What do you really think?”

“I think you’re a very pretty teenager,” he repeated.

“Mom’s always bugging me to do more with myself. Like Lindsey. I mean Lindsey was just much more into the superficials than I am.” The girl grew pensive. “She was also flesh and blood, not just private thoughts scrawled on a piece of paper. Remember that when you read this, Sergeant,” she said, tapping her finger on the diary.

“I will, Erin.”

“I’m gonna miss her,” Erin said to herself. At last the tears came pouring out. “Oh God, I miss her so much already.”

A toss of the coin put Decker in the driver’s seat as Marge delved into the diary. After ten minutes of reading, she chuckled out loud.

“The kid had a sense of humor,” she said. “Listen to this. It’s dated about a year ago. ‘We made love again last night.’ She’s referring to Chris. ‘I did something I’ve never done before. I opened my eyes and looked at him while he was doing it. He looked like he was going to sneeze but it never came out so I guess that’s just how he looks when he’s into it. I like to make love, I like the closeness to Chris, but I kept wanting to offer him a tissue when I watched him. From now on, I think I’ll keep my eyes closed.’”

Decker smiled, but it was edged with sadness. Marge caught the melancholy in his eyes.

“This is very ghoulish,” she said, flipping the page.

“At least we’re on the side of truth and justice.”

“You forgot the American way.”

The Plymouth hooked onto the 210 Freeway, the major thoroughfare that linked the Foothill pocket communities with intercity urban sprawl. Dusk coated the mountains, obscuring their hard edges. Marge took out a penlight to augment the dwindling light.

“Did she write about boys other than Chris?” Decker asked.

“Nope. At least not so far.” She read a few more pages to herself. “Lindsey was wild about Chris. Gushing. True love.”

“Get a feel for him?”

“He liked sex.”

“That’s the majority of the diary?”

“Oh no, not at all. Most of it is very mundane-one-sentence entries. She didn’t even write every day. Here-the whole weekend is summed up as ‘I bought a pink blouse.’ Two days later she writes, ‘I got a new pair of sandals.’ The next weekend it’s, ‘I gotta get to a beach. My tan’s fading. I look like Ghostwoman.’”

Marge went back to reading. The police radio spat out calls that concerned neither of them. Decker lit a cigarette to break the monotony of the ride.

“Listen to this,” Marge said. “Dated around six months ago. ‘ Erin came home dressed in her bag-lady getup.’”

“Aha.”

“‘Honestly, she’s just hopeless! And she could do so much more with herself if she’d just try. God, I’m sounding like Mom. How gross!’”

Decker laughed. “Insight at fifteen.”

“Hey, some never achieve it in a lifetime.”

“That’s true. Did she write about posing for Chris in the nude?”

“Yeah. Let me find the entries…Ah, here’s one. ‘Cris took more nude pictures of me. Like always, we made love afterwards, this time doggie style. Man, he’s big, I like it the best when I’m on top.’” Marge smiled. “Adventurous little thing, wasn’t she.”

“Can’t hold back raging hormones.”

She looked at him. “Is it hard being the father of a teenaged daughter?”

“It has its moments.” He definitely didn’t like the tenor of this conversation. “Is there anything to suggest that Chris coerced her into posing nude?”

“Not that I can tell.”

Decker checked his watch and floored the accelerator. Even at high speeds, he wasn’t going to make it in time for the start of the Sabbath. He wondered if Rabbi Schulman would say anything. Probably not.

“She was sensitive, Pete,” Marge said. “She got her feelings hurt a lot.”

“Such as?”

She skimmed a few of the back pages. “Like Heather didn’t notice her new dress…Chris didn’t call when he said he would… Erin was her usual sharp-tongued witch. I can sure believe that. Here’s another-Brian embarrassed her in front of her English teacher.”

“Brian’s a jerk.”

“Yeah, she knew that too. Wait a minute, let me find…” She turned to the back pages. “Here it is. She writes, ‘Brian got drunk and threw up in his dad’s car again. I know he’s a loser, but I feel sorry for him. His dad is completely disgusting, always trying to put the make on girls Bri brings home. It’s no wonder he scams all the time.’”

“Did she mention the dad coming on to her?”

“Not specifically.”

Marge read further.

“She has her share of catty digs in here. It really pissed her off when someone looked better than her. She was vain.”

“Never met a teenager who wasn’t self-absorbed in some way,” Decker said.

Ten minutes later Decker shot the amber light at the end of the freeway off-ramp and sped toward the station house.

“In a hurry?” Marge asked.

“A little.”

She closed the diary and handed it to him.

“You take a look at it and tell me what you think,” she said. “I don’t find anything unusual in here. Nothing that spells an unhappy kid about to run away. And nothing to suggest that Truscott was weird. She was gaga over him-wrote about following him to the end of the universe.”