Cemetery Girl Read online

  “Caitlin told me about the fight this morning,” Abby said. “Actually, she told Chris about it.”

  The fight and the slap seemed so distant somehow, something that had happened in another life.

  “I lost my cool. And I’m sorry for it. She must have gotten a thrill out of being able to tell Chris about it and make me look like the bad guy.”

  “It’s not like that, Tom.”

  “I know. In a strange sort of way, I’m glad he got her to talk to him. About anything. I thought slapping her was going to wake her up.”

  Abby didn’t respond. She still wore the slightly stunned, slightly spacey look she had been wearing when I’d first come into the room.

  “Abby? Does Caitlin know about this?”

  She shook her head. “I’m scared, Tom.”

  “Of the man?”

  “I thought we’d turned the page,” she said. “I was ready to just go on. When she talked to Chris today, I thought things might really be moving ahead.”

  “I’m going to go tell her,” I said.

  “I couldn’t do it, Tom. I thought telling her would make it more real. I called you. I was glad when you didn’t answer.” She knotted her hands together, a lump of flesh and fingers. “Chris left, so I was alone.”

  I heard something and turned my head. I held a silencing finger up to Abby. A rustling at the top of the stairs. Faint. I listened and heard nothing more.

  “I’m going to go tell her,” I said. “She has to be ready to face Ryan.”

  “I didn’t like the way he talked to her last time,” she said. “It was too harsh.”

  “I know,” I said. “But he was trying to push her a little.”

  “It sounded like he was blaming her,” she said. “Do you think they’ll let Chris be there or talk to her? She opened up to him.”

  “She wasn’t opening up to Chris,” I said. “She was getting back at me.”

  Halfway up the stairs, I stopped. They were holding the man, physically. He was in custody. He could answer for—explain even—everything. For ripping the fabric of our lives to pieces. For Caitlin. For Tracy. For God knew how many others.

  My grip tightened on the banister. Something clouded my vision. Red and white splotches. My heart thumped. When the splotches disappeared, I found myself pulling against the banister, trying to rip it out of the wall. It didn’t give and my grip slipped. I fell back against the opposite wall of the staircase, making a loud thump. It hurt my back, and I welcomed the pain. It brought me back to reality. My home. My daughter.

  The man in the sketch.

  I took several deep, gasping breaths. Abby appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Tom?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I fell.”

  She took a step up. “You look sick, Tom.”

  “I’m fine.” I held my hand out. “I’m going to talk to Caitlin.”

  She was in the master bedroom, the door closed. I knocked, and when I didn’t get any response, I knocked again. “It’s your dad,” I said, trying the knob and feeling it give. Not Dad. Your dad. A more distant and formal designation, as though I were talking about two strangers.

  Caitlin was lying back on the bed, reading a book. I couldn’t make out the title, but it looked like the kind of thing she used to read before she left, something aimed at preteen girls. She didn’t look over at me when I came in but kept her eyes on the pages of the book. Her brow was furrowed and her lips moved as she scanned the words. She looked like a certain kind of kid who passed through my classrooms, the ones who came from areas with poor public schools and adults who never attended college.

  “I need to tell you something, Caitlin.”

  She didn’t look up from the book.

  “Did you hear what we were talking about downstairs? Were you at the top of the stairs?”

  “I heard some,” she said. “You were talking about the police. And Pastor Chris. Then I heard you try to rip the banister out of the wall.”

  “Detective Ryan’s coming over again.”

  She stiffened a little. “Why? To ask me more sex questions?”

  “They found him, Caitlin. They arrested him.”

  She considered this for a long moment without looking at me. “You’re a fucking liar,” she finally said. “You’d lie to me about anything.”

  “No.” I kept my voice firm. “He’s in jail, right now. Detective Ryan is coming over to talk to you, and this time there’s no point in keeping everything a secret. They have him, so we’re going to find out what it’s all about. He’s hurt other people, Caitlin. Other girls like you. He’s not going to be able to do that to anyone else.”

  “He wouldn’t hurt someone.”

  “He did.” I took a step forward into the room. “Remember, just this morning, you said that he did things to you. He hurt you.”

  She sat up on the bed, letting the book fall to the floor. Her face showed real animation. “Are they bringing him here?” she asked.

  “No, they’re not bringing him here. He’s in jail. Didn’t you hear me?”

  She looked at the floor, her chin quivering. She took hold of the necklace and rubbed the stone.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked. I stopped myself, gathered my thoughts. “Caitlin, I know this is confusing for you. I know that after what’s happened, you might be confused about your feelings, especially your feelings for this man. It’s part of what you’ve been through, but you need to start getting through that. This man . . . he needs to go to jail.”

  “They’re not going to hurt him, are they? Tell me you won’t let them hurt him.”

  She turned away and flopped back onto the bed, burying her face in the covers so I couldn’t see her. It sounded like she was crying.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Ryan looked more tired than usual when he showed up at our door. He wore a polo shirt, tan pants, and no jacket despite the cool temperature. He didn’t come inside, but instead motioned the two of us out onto the porch.

  When we were all seated, Ryan started talking.

  “I imagine you want to be brought up to speed as soon as possible.” He flipped open the small notebook. “Yesterday, just before five a.m., the fire department responded to a call for a house fire out on Smith Springs Road. When they arrived, they found the house engulfed and beyond saving. A neighbor had seen the flames and called it in, but no one was certain if anyone was home at the time. It’s still too hot to do a thorough search of the house, but the preliminary investigation hasn’t revealed any evidence of human remains yet. Records indicate that the house belongs to a John Colter. Does that name mean anything to either of you?”

  “Is that the man?” I asked. “Is that his name?”

  “Does the name mean anything to either of you?” Ryan asked.

  Abby shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Tom?”

  I scanned through every student name I could remember, every coworker, every maintenance person who ever passed through school or our home. “I don’t think I know him.”

  Ryan went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “The preliminary investigation shows that the cause of the fire was arson. A pretty amateur job. Whoever set the fire didn’t make much of an attempt to cover their tracks. They simply poured gasoline over everything, and investigators even found the melted plastic gas cans in the debris. Initially, we thought it looked like insurance fraud of some kind.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “They also found something else in the basement of the home.”

  “Do we want to know?” Abby asked, more to herself than to us.

  “They found a room. At first, it looked to be a bedroom, something created after the home was built. It didn’t appear to be part of the original structure. The door to this room was heavily fortified. Several different locks as well as some sort of reinforced steel sheeting.”

  I stared at the sky. It was perfectly blue like a robin’s egg. I was numb.

 
; “It looked like it was meant to keep someone locked up.”

  “You think . . .” Abby left her thought unfinished.

  “Like I said, it’s going to take some time before they can complete a more thorough examination of the house, especially the basement. Given the nature of the fire damage, it seems unlikely we’ll be able to find any definitive proof that any individual, Caitlin or otherwise, was ever in that basement room. It seems possible the fire was set for that very reason. To obscure evidence.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want the police to know he held Tracy Fairlawn there as well,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” Ryan said.

  “Tracy.” I looked at Abby. “You know, the girl from the strip club?”

  “Why are you bringing her up?” Abby asked.

  “Maybe Detective Ryan should tell us,” I said.

  “I don’t think this is relevant, Tom,” he said.

  I turned back to Abby. “Tracy was held captive by a man for six months about five years ago. He took her off the street and brought her to a house. She didn’t know where. He held here there. He raped her repeatedly. She managed to get away, and then she had a baby.”

  Abby looked stricken. “Are you going to tell me there’s a connection?”

  “We don’t know—” Ryan said.

  “She says it’s the same man.” I kept my eyes on Abby, boring in. “The man she saw in the strip club with Caitlin was the man who took her and held her and raped her. The same man. Detective Ryan here just declined to share that information with us.”

  Ryan stiffened. “Where are you hearing these things, Tom?”

  “I have my sources, too.”

  “Well, I came here because I’d like to talk to Caitlin,” Ryan said. “And I’d like to be able to talk to her alone.”

  “Shouldn’t we be there?” Abby asked. “Someone to look out for her.”

  “Our attorney?” I said.

  “Why would she need an attorney?” Abby asked.

  “Caitlin isn’t guaranteed access to a lawyer during questioning,” Ryan said. “We may allow her to have one present, as a courtesy. Some kind of advocate. I can decide on that—”

  “She has fewer rights than this guy in the jail?” I asked.

  “Hold it, Tom.” Abby held her hands out for silence. “Hold it.”

  “Abby, he doesn’t care about Caitlin . . .”

  She kept the hand up in the air between us, and I stopped talking. Abby looked calm and determined, so I yielded. “Who is this man?” she asked Ryan. “And are the things Tom is saying true? Did he hold Tracy there?”

  Ryan shifted his eyes between the both of us. “Late last night, police in Union County pulled Mr. Colter over for speeding. Do you know where Union County is?”

  Abby nodded. “About seventy miles away.”

  “When they ran him through the system, the warrant for the arson came up, so they took him in and called us. We collected him in the morning and brought him back here to have a little talk about the house fire. Let’s just say we caught a lucky break. Caitlin’s story has been in the news, so our officers have seen that composite sketch on an almost daily basis. One of our officers raised the question, and we put it together with the house with the room in the basement.”

  He held his hands out. There you go.

  After four years, a speeding ticket wrapped it up.

  “What did he say?” Abby asked.

  “Nothing yet. When we brought up Caitlin’s name, he said he’d read about her in the paper. But that’s it.”

  “And witnesses?” Abby asked. “The girl from the club? Tracy? Is it true he took her too?”

  “She’s gone,” I said.

  Abby whipped her head toward me.

  “She’s disappeared,” I said. And my voice was quieter, distant even to my own ears. “No one can find her. Not her mother, not Liann. Two weeks and no sign of her.”

  “She’ll turn up,” Ryan said. “They usually do. Like I told you, that girl has problems, drug problems. She’s not reliable.”

  “Who is this guy?” I asked. “What does he do?”

  “He’s on disability. Some kind of knee injury. He used to work at the Hearn plant, but it’s been about ten years since he did that. He hasn’t been in much trouble with us. One assault arrest about fifteen years ago. Otherwise, nothing.”

  “How old is he?” I asked.

  “Fifty-three.”

  The number stabbed me like a knife. Fifty-three. Older than me.

  Ryan leaned back and worked his hand into his pants pocket. He brought out a Polaroid photo. “I’d like you to look at this and tell me if you know this man.”

  He held it out in the air between us, but neither Abby nor I made a grab for it. Finally, she moved and took it. The corners of her mouth turned down with revulsion.

  “I don’t know him,” she said.

  She passed the photo to me. My hands shook as I took it.

  I looked down at a stunned face, one that didn’t appear prepared to have its picture taken. His surprisingly blue eyes were open wide, his lips slightly parted. He bore a strong resemblance to Tracy’s description and the sketch the police had created. There was the same long, greasy hair, the wide nose. His skin was ruddy and pocked, like twenty miles of bad road, as my stepfather used to say. I didn’t recognize the man from anywhere in my life, but I continued to stare, searching for something. A mark of evil, a sign of malicious intent. But I couldn’t find the marker that would tip me off, the thing that told the world this man aimed to destroy lives. It was an ugly face, not an evil one.

  “Do you recognize him?” Ryan asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I held on to the picture, and Ryan reached out and took it back. He didn’t put it in his pocket, but held it in his hand. He tapped it against his thigh a few times. “I need to talk to your girl,” he said.

  “You said you don’t need our permission,” I said. “Are you just going to drag her out of here while we watch?”

  “I don’t need your permission, but I’d like it.” He continued to tap the photo against his leg. “I’d also like to talk to her away from here. Since it didn’t go so well the last time, I thought we might try it at the station. She might take it more seriously.”

  “Will she have to see him?” Abby asked.

  Him. We all knew who she meant. The man. John Colter.

  Ryan shook his head. “No way,” he said.

  “But she would have to see him at a trial?” I asked.

  “That’s why we’d like her to talk now. Maybe this guy agrees to plead to something and save us all a lot of trouble. If we can get to the bottom of this sooner, it might save Caitlin some grief.”

  Abby looked at me. “Tom?”

  I recognized my cue. “Ryan, I—we—were a little concerned about the way you spoke to Caitlin the last time. It seems as though you were treating her like she had done something wrong. She’s the victim here, remember?”

  “Of course, Tom.” Ryan shrugged, and the gesture seemed too large, overexaggerated. “We all have the same goals here, to understand what happened and to get Caitlin the help she needs.”

  “She’s only sixteen now,” Abby said. “Sixteen is so young . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, fading like the wind through the trees.

  Ryan stood up. He slipped the photo back into his pocket. “We’re still tying some things up from the morning,” he said. “But if you could bring her to the station in an hour or so, that would be great.”

  “Are you going to get this guy, Ryan?” I asked.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “And will we know what was said, what she tells you?”

  Ryan nodded. “I will keep you in the loop.”

  “Tom?” Abby asked. “Are you sure you want her to do this alone? I’m really not. Caitlin is so fragile right now. She’s been so hurt by this.”

  What happ
ened to me.

  “That’s exactly why she needs to do this,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

  Abby didn’t respond, so I pressed on.

  “Because she’s been hurt, she needs to tell the story,” I said. I felt the need to convince her. “This man has hurt other girls. He needs to be put away. Caitlin can do that.”

  “You just want to hand her over to be questioned?” Abby asked.

  “A crime’s been committed, Abby,” Ryan said. “I have to find the answers, and Caitlin has them. I’m not trying to harm her, but we need her to try to help us as much as she can. Even if it’s just a little.”

  “There are a lot of people involved in this, Abby,” I said. “Not just us.”

  “Is that who you’re thinking of, Tom? All the other people?”

  “It’s necessary, Abby,” I said.

  “Right.” She stood up and folded her arms across her chest. “I guess I better be the one to go tell her she’s being handed over to you men.” She nearly spat the last word at us, like it was a stone she’d found in a loaf of bread. “You two have such a good rapport with her these days.”

  She whisked away, leaving the two of us on the porch. We didn’t have anything else to say to each other, so Ryan turned and went, reminding me as he left that we should bring Caitlin to the station in an hour.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Abby stared out the cloudy front window of the police station at the traffic passing on the street. She didn’t appear focused or fixed on anything. I sat down beside her, and she pretended not to notice me. I waited a few moments, not sure if I should even bother to say anything. Finally, I decided to try. “I’m not trying to hurt Caitlin,” I said. “Or you.”

  She didn’t say anything, but I saw a muscle in her jaw twitch.

  “I think this is our last, best chance, letting her talk to Ryan today.”

  Abby turned to me. “You talk about last chances, Tom. Caitlin is the one who matters. Our focus needs to be on her. She’s what matters—to both of us.”

  I stared at the floor. Then my phone rang. I stood up and took the call.

  “Hey,” a voice said through the line. It sounded flat, almost unrecognizable.