Cemetery Girl Page 5

  “What’s your little girl like?” Tracy asked.

  “Tracy—”

  “I want to know, Liann, that’s all. I’m curious.”

  “It’s okay,” I said to Liann. “I don’t mind.”

  But then I felt stuck. Four years of interviews with cops and reporters, four years of encapsulating Caitlin for flyers and Web sites. I never felt able to adequately sum her up so someone who didn’t know my daughter would recognize her. And I couldn’t help but wonder: would the picture I created of the twelve-year-old who walked out the door that day bear any resemblance to the sixteen-year-old young woman I hoped she lived to become?

  “She’s smart,” I said. “Really smart.”

  “You’re a professor at the college, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Figures she’d be smart then.”

  “She’s kind of quiet, too. She kept to herself a lot.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Yes. She has blond hair, very blond. And her eyes were—are—blue. Bluer than yours even.”

  Tracy smiled, and I couldn’t help but think I was looking into the face of some older version of Caitlin, the one who never came home.

  The bartender, Pete, came by carrying two cases of beer. His biceps pressed against his shirt like cannonballs.

  “You’re almost on shift, Tracy.”

  “Fuck off, Pete.”

  Pete sighed and kept walking.

  Tracy waited until he was gone, then leaned in and stubbed out her cigarette.

  “I saw your little girl once. At the Love Shack.”

  Despite the club soda, my mouth felt dry. I didn’t say anything ; I didn’t move, not wanting to create a vibration that might prevent her from telling me what I needed to know. Instead, I sat perfectly still while an icy sensation grew beneath my shirt collar and spread down my back. I waited.

  Tracy dug into her pack and lit another cigarette.

  “This was about six months ago, about six months after you came in there showing that picture around. Do you still have that picture with you?”

  “Tracy, tell him the story, just like you told me,” Liann said.

  Tracy glanced at Liann and nodded, looking a little like a chastened teenager. She flicked her ash onto the floor.

  “It was a regular night, just any old night. I don’t remember what day of the week it was. Probably not a weekend since we weren’t that crowded. This guy came up to me and said he wanted to buy a lap dance. I told him, ‘Twenty dollars,’ and he said, ‘Sure,’ like it was no problem with the price. Some of them come in there and try to get the price down, or else they’re real careful how they ask because they’re hoping they’re going to get something more than a lap dance. They say, ‘Twenty dollars to go back there with you,’ you know, because they’re thinking if they don’t specify we might go back there and do something besides the lap dance. Something extra.” She shook her head. “They didn’t let us do that at the Love Shack. No way.

  “At the Love Shack they have little rooms off to the side, three of them. That’s where we went for the lap dances. They weren’t much bigger than closets really, but there were those vinyl bench seats built into the wall, and usually another chair just sitting there in the room. Sometimes we got guys who came in who were shy, and they’d sit in the chair for a while, waiting. We’d let them do that for a little bit, but not too long. If they didn’t hurry up, they needed to go. There was money to be made.”

  Tracy stared at the table and picked at a chip in the Formica. “Anyway, I went behind the curtain and into room number three to wait for the guy. I got kind of a bad vibe from him, just the way he talked and handed over the money.”

  “What kind of bad vibe?” I asked.

  She looked away. “I don’t know. Some guys I can tell are just going to be relaxed and easygoing. Regular guys who are just doing this for fun.” She kind of smiled, as though thinking of a distant but pleasant memory. But the smile passed quickly, and she looked back at me. “But there are other types. I know all about them. They have something else on their mind. Do you know what that is?”

  She seemed to be waiting for an answer, so I provided one.

  “Sex?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I wish.” She shook her head again. “No, these guys want to hurt somebody. Girls, mainly. They want to control a girl or clamp down on her. They want to use her for something, overpower them.”

  “Did this man hurt you?” I asked.

  “He came into room three,” she said, “where I was waiting. He was older, in his fifties probably. His hair was kind of long and greasy, and it was going gray. He was ugly. His nose was wide and fat, his skin was kind of puffy. He looked right at me and came over to the bench, and I almost just gave him his money back right there and told him to forget it. We have bouncers and everything. They listen for trouble, and they’re good, but being in the room with that guy made my skin crawl.” She shivered just thinking about it, and I assumed her feeling was a cousin to the icy sensation that still possessed my body. “Then I saw the girl behind him.”

  “Caitlin?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  Liann reached over and placed her hand on top of mine. She didn’t say anything, and while her touch felt warm, it brought no real comfort.

  “I’ve danced for couples before,” Tracy said. “Plenty of times. It wasn’t that weird. But I’d never danced for a couple like that. At first I thought maybe they were father and daughter. Hell, maybe he was her grandfather. But then he reached out and took her hand and pulled her close, and I got it. I understood what was going on between them two. They were a couple.”

  “Tom?” Liann asked. “Are you okay? Are you going to be sick?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t answer. But I did feel like I was coming down with something. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep everything down, if the beer and greasy food was going to come pouring back out of me in a hot, messy rush.

  Liann was up and almost immediately came back with another cup of club soda. The sickness eased; my temperature regulated.

  “Do you want to stop, Tom?” Liann asked. “We can do this another day.”

  I shook my head.

  “I know it’s hard to hear,” Tracy said, although she didn’t sound all that sympathetic.

  “Why didn’t you tell this to the police back then?” I asked. “Why are you telling us this now?”

  Liann stepped in. “Tracy didn’t make the connection until she saw the stories and the picture in the paper this week, the stories about Caitlin’s service. When she saw them, she called me. Like Tracy said, I’ve helped her out before when she’s had a little trouble. And some other members of her family as well. It was no big deal, just kid stuff. She’s over that now, though.” Liann reached out and placed that comforting, motherly hand on Tracy’s arm again. “She trusts me.”

  “You remembered Caitlin all that time later?” I asked Tracy. “You recognized her picture in the paper?”

  “I’d seen you before,” she said. “And then . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  I looked from her to Liann, waiting for the rest. “And?” I asked.

  “Go on, Tracy,” Liann said. “Tell him.”

  I wanted to tell her to stop. I wanted to say, No more. It felt like the muscle fiber in my heart was rending, tearing apart.

  But I couldn’t stop listening.

  “He went and sat down, the guy. And the girl—” She paused. “Your daughter sat in the chair across from him. You know what a lap dance is, right?”

  I’d been to enough bachelor parties to get the picture, and Liann nodded, too. “They make us do it reverse cowgirl style,” Tracy said. “They want us to face away from the guy, so only our butt touches his lap. And we’re dressed, of course. That’s the law. And with us facing away, I guess they figure it’s less likely the guy’s going to get all handsy or something. I don’t know why they think that. If a guy’s going to get handsy, he’ll d
o it no matter what, right? But when this guy asked me to face him, I felt nervous. I mean, he was already creeping me out and everything, and then he brought the girl with him, your girl, and I just didn’t feel right.” She sighed. “But I didn’t feel like I could say no to him. We’re not supposed to say no unless we really feel like we’re in danger, and I couldn’t say I felt in danger. And I needed the money and the job. So I went along. And everything went fine. He didn’t lay a hand on me.”

  She paused and lit another cigarette.

  “But?” I asked.

  “He didn’t even look at me,” Tracy said. She might have tried, but she couldn’t hide the trace of disappointment in her voice. “He looked right past me at the—your daughter. He kept his eyes locked on her the whole time I danced in his lap. She’s younger than me, I guess.” Tracy shrugged. “We only do it for one song. When the song ends, we get up. I turned around and saw the girl. She wore this blank look on her face, no emotion. Nothing. She looked kind of dead. But she was staring right at him. Her eyes were locked on his, like she was under hypnosis or something and couldn’t move without him saying so. It gave me the creeps even more, even worse than if he’d hit her or something.”

  Tracy paused, and fished yet another cigarette from her bag. “I left the room first,” she said. “I stepped outside the little closet, and I’m supposed to go right back to the dance floor, you know, and start working all over again. But I didn’t. I stayed right outside the door. I didn’t have a plan or anything. I just felt like doing it. I felt like I needed to be there for some reason. Maybe I was thinking of my own little girl. Cassie. Maybe I was thinking if she were ever in that situation I’d want somebody to try to do something for her.

  “But the two of them didn’t come out right away. I waited a minute, two minutes, and nothing. No sign of them. Like I said, I’d danced for couples before, and I know sometimes it gets them . . . excited, you know? Some couples get off on that kind of stuff. But they’re not allowed to do anything about it, not on our property, you know? That would get us in trouble, and we’re supposed to look out for that kind of thing. So I went back in to check.”

  She stopped and looked at Liann. It seemed to be some kind of sore spot between them and Tracy was silently pleading her case one last time in hopes that Liann would let her off the hook.

  Liann shook her head. “We talked about this, Tracy,” she said. “You have to tell the whole story. It’s your story, and you have to own it.”

  After a long pause, Tracy turned back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” I replied, even though I didn’t believe it was okay. In truth, I wanted to run and hide.

  “When I went back in, the girl was on the floor, on her knees, facing away from me . . .”

  She didn’t have to complete the picture. I got it. We all did. Even if it hadn’t been Caitlin, if it had been somebody else’s daughter, I’d want that man brought to justice. I’d want him castrated and tortured. No one’s daughter should have to do that. No parent should have to hear about it. The fact that it might be my daughter, that I hoped it was my daughter, made it almost too much to bear.

  “I guess they stopped when they heard me come into the room. Then they came out, and they were walking side by side. He kept his arm around her, like they were a couple, but when I looked close, I saw it was a real tight grip. His arm was around her waist, like he didn’t want to let her go.”

  “Or like he was afraid she would run,” Liann said.

  “Yeah,” Tracy said. “Like that. He held his head real close to hers, real close, like he was whispering something to her . . . or kissing her.”

  I swallowed and waited for more.

  “She was on my side, the girl. It was just lucky that way. I put my hand out, real slow and gentle, and I touched her arm. I didn’t think he’d see me, but I wanted her to know I was there if she needed something or wanted to say something. The girl turned to me. She looked right at me. Her face still looked blank and all zom-bielike, but her eyes showed something else. Fear, I guess. Emotion. Like she wanted to say something to me. She really wanted to, I could tell. And the girl actually started to—she opened her mouth and looked right at me, and I thought she was going to ask me for help. And I would have done it, too, right there. I would have.”

  “What did she say?” I asked, my voice getting louder.

  “Nothing,” Tracy said. “Right when her mouth opened, the guy saw me there, and he must have seen my hand on her arm, because he jerked her away, pulled her right back to him the way you pull a dog on a leash, you know? He didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t have to. He just stared at me as they walked away, his eyes telling me to stay back, to butt out, to mind my own business.” Tracy seemed to have forgotten her cigarette. Its ash was growing and tipping toward the floor. “I wish I’d done something or said something. I think about it all the time.”

  Her last words sounded scripted, almost insincere, but Liann reached over and gave Tracy’s hand a squeeze.

  “You’re doing something now,” Liann said. “This is how you can help that girl.”

  Tracy looked at me. “I saw that picture in the paper last night, and I called Liann right away.” She looked over at Liann and smiled. “I do trust her. I got busted once—”

  “That’s not important, Tracy,” Liann said.

  Tracy shrugged. “Whatever, right? It all came together. I want to see this man stopped. I want to see him punished.”

  Her voice took on an edge that wasn’t there before, one that sounded personal. She stabbed the dying cigarette into the ashtray as if to punctuate her point. She looked away from me then, her hand near her mouth.

  The crowd in the Fantasy Club picked up. Businessmen in ties sat at tables side by side with truckers and farmworkers. True democracy. There was a stirring behind the curtain on the stage, and somebody clapped. It looked like the show was about to begin.

  “We need to tell the police,” I said.

  Tracy’s head whipped around toward me.

  “No,” she said, the same edge in her voice. She turned to Liann. “You said I didn’t have to.”

  Liann gave me a quick glance, letting me know I was crossing some boundary. She leaned in toward Tracy and adopted the motherly pose again, speaking to the young woman in a gentle, comforting tone of voice.

  “You said you wanted to help,” Liann said to her. “And this is the way to help. This is the way to make a difference. The only way to find this guy is to call the police. I’ll watch out for you and make sure they don’t bullshit you.”

  But Tracy shook her head. She pushed back from the table and grabbed her gym bag.

  “You didn’t say anything about the police, Liann. You told me no cops. You know that’s how it has to be. You know that. I trusted you.”

  She stood up, a swirl of motion, and not even Liann calling her name slowed her down as she walked away. So I stood up and said her name, louder than I’d intended apparently. Tracy stopped and so did a lot of other people. They were all looking at me, their heads half cocked, their mouths partly open. Some of them smirked, and others nudged their friends as if to say, Here’s the show! Watch this guy get all crazy over a fucking stripper.

  “Tracy, wait. Wait!”

  She stopped in her tracks, her back to me. She didn’t turn around, didn’t encourage me, but she appeared to be waiting. Listening.

  My audience listened as well.

  “This is my daughter,” I said. “Like you said, you’d want someone to help your little girl if she needed it.”

  Someone let out a long, sarcastic “Awwwww,” and someone else shouted, “Show us your tits!”

  Tracy still didn’t move.

  “Please, Tracy. You’re our only lead here.”

  I couldn’t see her face. I couldn’t read what she was thinking or if my words were sinking in at all.

  “I don’t like the police,” she said, her voice small and childlike.

  “L
iann’s right,” I said. “They have to be involved. They can help us.”

  Tracy didn’t say anything else, but her head moved ever so slightly. A quick nod with her eyes squeezed shut. It looked like surrender.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Seven

  A dark sedan entered the parking lot of the Fantasy Club and came toward the building. It was Detective Ryan. Liann and I stood next to each other while he parked and exited the car. Ryan was taller than me and thick through the middle, with a bushy mustache that more than compensated for his thinning hair. His belt buckle always hung low, beneath his gut, and Ryan frequently used his large, powerful hands to hitch his pants higher. He had come to us the day Caitlin disappeared and he led the investigation the entire time. Early on, he was a comforting presence in our house, a distant but protective father with the power to restore order.

  We shook hands as he stepped into the glow from the Fantasy Club’s entrance lights. They were orange and yellow and cast Ryan in a surreal wash. I knew Ryan wouldn’t like seeing Liann there. She asked questions and second-guessed the police in a way that must have made Ryan feel like he was getting nibbled to death by ducks. But I always appreciated Liann’s efforts. I figured the more questions being asked, the more pressure being exerted, the greater the likelihood something good would result and Caitlin would be found. Ryan nodded at Liann, his lips pursed into a forced smile.

  I gave Ryan a quick rundown of what had happened, with Liann filling in details when needed. He listened, not saying anything or commenting in any way. Ryan wore what I thought of as a cop mask. He kept his face impassive regardless of the circumstance and frequently began his sentences with the phrase “I don’t have a horse in this race . . .” But I never failed to notice the way his eyes appraised me while I spoke, absorbing my every gesture or inflection and recording it somewhere.