The Last Dead Girl Read online

  “You got any cigarettes?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “You got money for cigarettes?”

  “No money,” he said.

  “Everybody’s got money.”

  K had no answer for that.

  “What are you doing?” the woman asked.

  “Nothing. Just passing the time.”

  “That’s cool. That’s what I’m doing too. Passing the time.”

  She went quiet, but she didn’t leave. K could smell cigarette smoke on her breath, along with the odor of stale beer. She held a red Solo cup in her right hand. He watched her take a drink from it.

  “Do you live here?” he asked her.

  “I’ve got friends who live here,” she said. “I come here a lot. Sometimes they let me crash.”

  “Well, maybe they can help you. I don’t give money to people I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I got that message off you. Loud and clear. Have I seen you before?”

  “I’m sure you haven’t.”

  “I think I saw you here the other night. What’s your thing? You just come here and sit in your car?”

  K started to deny it, then changed his mind. “That’s right,” he said. “I sit here and concentrate, and my thoughts make things happen.”

  “No way.”

  “It’s true.”

  And it was. Across the street, Jana Fletcher’s front door opened. David Malone stepped out, bare-chested, carrying his shirt. Tarzan.

  “Hey, are you watching that guy?” the woman said. “Is this like a stakeout?”

  “Yes,” said K. “It’s like a stakeout.”

  “Are you a cop?” the woman said, an edge of suspicion creeping into her voice. “Because I haven’t done anything wrong.” She paused a beat. “Not yet anyway.”

  “Are you planning to?”

  “Maybe. But if you’re a cop, you have to tell me. Otherwise it’s entrapment.”

  “I think you’re mistaken,” said K.

  “No, that’s for real. It’s like a law.”

  “I think you may have an imperfect grasp of the law.”

  Across the street, Malone locked Jana Fletcher’s door. He stood on her steps in the sunlight, putting on his shirt.

  “I don’t think you’re a cop,” the woman said to K. She raised the red cup to her lips and brought it down again. “Who is that guy?” she said.

  “That’s Tarzan,” said K. “The Ape Man.”

  “You talk a lotta shit. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  Malone buttoned his shirt as he walked to his truck.

  “I’m leaving,” K said to the woman.

  “That’s a shame,” the woman said, smiling. “I was just warming up to you.”

  Her teeth weren’t bad, K thought. Just not quite straight.

  “You want to go for a ride?” he said.

  The smile got bigger. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  • • •

  The woman wore a sleeveless top and a short skirt. She had fine legs. K admired them when she got in the car, and stole glances at them as he drove along, following Malone. He tried to guess her age and decided she must be in her late twenties or early thirties. Still pretty, but cigarettes and too much sun were beginning to take a toll on the skin of her arms and chest. Her clothes seemed inexpensive, and she carried a cheap leather purse on a long, thin strap. But she wore a ring on her left hand, silver with a purple stone. An amethyst.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Jolene,” she said.

  “Like the song?”

  “What song?”

  Up ahead, Malone’s truck bounced over a set of railroad tracks. K thought about the woman’s red Solo cup. He didn’t want beer spilled in his car. He held out his hand for the cup and after a second she gave it to him. After they passed over the tracks, he gave it back to her.

  “You’ve never heard that song?” he said.

  “Maybe you could sing some. Maybe I’ll recognize it.”

  He tried to think of the words, could only remember the chorus.

  “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jo-leeeeeene.”

  She rested the red cup on her thigh. “That’s not much of a song,” she said. “You’re just saying my name over and over.”

  “There’s more to it,” K said.

  “It’s good though. You have a nice voice. Did you ever sing in a choir?”

  Malone’s brake lights flared. He made a turn onto the main drag, Erie Boulevard, and headed downtown. K followed.

  “I’m messing with you,” Jolene said. “About the song.”

  “I thought you might be,” said K.

  “It’s Dolly Parton. I love that song. I just wanted to see if you’d sing it.”

  • • •

  Malone drove past the university and the hospital and pulled into the lot of an apartment complex—an upscale version of the one across from Jana Fletcher’s duplex. The pickup truck rolled into a numbered space close to one of the buildings, and K found a space marked VISITOR farther back.

  He watched Malone disappear into the building. Impossible to tell which apartment was his. It could be useful to know. There was a row of mailboxes beside the entry door. There might be names on the boxes or there might just be numbers. K could go and check, but he wondered if there might be another way.

  “What are we doing here?” Jolene asked him.

  “Shhhh,” he said.

  The building had three stories and each of the units on the top two floors had a balcony. More likely than not, David Malone lived on the second or third floor. Two chances out of three. K believed that if he concentrated, he could make Malone come out onto his balcony.

  “How long are we gonna follow this guy?” Jolene asked.

  K held up a finger to silence her, and she murmured something that sounded like “You’re gettin’ to be kind of a drag.” But she didn’t say anything more. He focused on each balcony in turn, starting on the third floor, working his way left to right, then the second floor, right to left.

  He came to the last one with no result and glanced over at Jolene. She was sitting quietly, balancing the red Solo cup on one knee. No hands.

  He reached over carefully and picked it up. Held it in his lap while he started over with the balconies. He got through the third floor and halfway through the second before Jolene broke his concentration.

  “I don’t have germs, you know,” she said.

  “What’s that now?”

  She pointed at the red cup. “You can have a drink if you want. You won’t catch anything.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” he said.

  A bit of movement caught his eye. A car pulling into the space beside Malone’s pickup truck.

  “Well, maybe I’m thirsty,” Jolene said. “Did you ever think of that?”

  The woman who got out of the car wore glasses and a doctor’s white coat. K watched her go up the steps and into the building.

  “Rude to hold on to it,” Jolene said, “if you’re not even gonna drink it.”

  K offered the cup to her. “Take it,” he said. “Just be careful. Use two hands.”

  Up on the second floor—all the way on the left—David Malone stepped out onto his balcony. He put a mug of coffee on the railing.

  “Two hands,” Jolene said. “What am I, a baby?”

  “Shhhh,” said K.

  “Are you shushing me again?” Jolene said. “I don’t believe you.” She drank from the beer, holding it with two hands. “Oh wow,” she said. “Look, it’s a guy on a balcony. This is great.”

  Movement on the balcony, a door sliding, and out came the woman with the glasses. The white coat was gone; she wore blue hospital scrubs. Her hair had been pinned up before, but now it was down. Another be
auty, K thought. Maybe Malone had them all over the city.

  “Oooooh, hey,” Jolene said. “It’s two people on a balcony.”

  K tried to tune her out. He watched the scene unfold. Malone and the woman didn’t look happy. They kept their distance from each other. Malone picked up his coffee and took a sip.

  “Uh-oh,” Jolene said. “He’s not using two hands.”

  8

  Sophie Emerson was still wearing the engagement ring I’d bought her. That was the first thing I noticed when she came onto the balcony: the sunlight glinting on the diamond.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said.

  I sipped my coffee so I wouldn’t have to answer her right away. Because there were a couple of answers I could have given. I’ve missed you too—that was one way to go. I haven’t thought of you at all—that was another. The truth was somewhere in the middle. I’d thought of her, but not enough, not as much as I should have.

  We’d been apart for ten days, and though I had visited the apartment on those days, I had always managed to come at times when she was out, working her crazy intern’s schedule. She had called my cell phone, three or four times a day at first, then less as time passed. I left the calls unanswered.

  “This can’t go on,” she said.

  I put the coffee down. “I know.”

  “I feel terrible.”

  “I know that too.”

  “It hasn’t happened again. With Brad. If you’re wondering. Or with anyone else. Just to be clear.”

  “Sophie—”

  “And it won’t. I promise you. So the question is: Can we work this out? What do I have to do, to get you back here?”

  The coffee called to me again, because I needed a delay, an excuse not to answer. I left the mug on the balcony rail.

  “I need to tell you something,” I said, “about what happened that night.” I almost called it the Night of the Doe, but that wouldn’t have meant anything to her. For me and Sophie, it was something else. The Night of the Condom Wrapper.

  “All right,” she said.

  “After I left here, I went driving. And I met someone.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.” I gave her the story, as much of it as she needed: the rain and the deer and the girl.

  She listened with a frozen expression, and I thought she wouldn’t say anything. But after a time she said, “What’s her name?”

  “Jana Fletcher.”

  “And that’s where you’ve been, all these nights? With her?”

  “Yes.”

  Sophie turned away from me and leaned on the railing. I looked at the ring on her finger. The sun was still shining, but it couldn’t find the diamond.

  “That first night,” she said, “when you didn’t come home, I got worried. Part of me knew you had a good reason to stay away. You were upset about what happened. But part of me thought that you’d gone out in the dark and the rain and wrapped your truck around a tree. All because of a dumb thing I did.”

  Sophie chuckled, an unexpected sound. “I actually went in to the hospital, to make sure you weren’t there. Then later on, when you didn’t come home and didn’t call, I got mad. I thought you were acting like a child. But when I saw you today I thought everything might be all right.” Her head bowed and her hair obscured her face. “Now you’ve knocked the wind out of me. Is this how you felt that night, when you found out about Brad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m sorry I did that to you. You must hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Sophie. I was hurt, but I’m past it.”

  “You are?”

  “So you shouldn’t blame yourself for it. You shouldn’t get bogged down in regret. I don’t blame you, and I don’t regret it.”

  Sophie stood up from the railing and faced me. “You don’t?”

  “No,” I said. “I think maybe it was meant to happen. Maybe we had to go through this. If we hadn’t, I never would have met her.”

  Which is not the thing to say to a woman who’s wearing your ring.

  What happened next—I didn’t see it coming. One moment Sophie’s hand was resting on the railing, the next it was moving fast. She hit me twice. First with her palm—a light slap that surprised me more than it hurt me. Surprised her too, I think. The second one was more deliberate and had more behind it. She used the back of her hand, and the diamond ring cut a slash on my temple.

  • • •

  What just happened?” Jolene said.

  “I don’t know,” said K.

  “It was pretty good though, wasn’t it? It picked up at the end.”

  The balcony was empty now. Malone had gone in through the sliding glass door and the woman had followed him.

  K started the car and pulled out of the parking space.

  “We’re leaving?” Jolene said.

  “Nothing more to see.”

  K waited for a gap in traffic and made a left onto the street. Beside him, Jolene held the red Solo cup between her knees.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s empty.”

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m sorry I was rude to you before.”

  “You’re not so bad.”

  “I want to make it up to you. Take a look in the glove compartment.”

  “Here?”

  “Right. What do you see?”

  “I see an owner’s manual.”

  “Underneath.”

  K heard her digging around.

  “A popsicle stick.”

  “Keep going,” he said.

  “Wait, are these rolling papers?”

  “Getting warmer.”

  Then a squeal as she pulled out a baggie and held it up. “Jackpot!”

  “There you go.”

  “Oh, you’re the best,” she said. “The absolute best.”

  • • •

  K drove out into the wild. That’s how he thought of it. Out on the back roads beyond the edge of the city. He looked for a spot he remembered: a turnout and a broken-down fence made of wooden posts, and an old mule path that ran off under the trees. By the time he found the turnout, Jolene had opened up the baggie and the papers—working smoothly in the moving car—and rolled two thick joints.

  They left the car and climbed over the fence, and when they were out of sight of the road Jolene took a lighter from her purse and fired up one of the joints. She held the smoke in her lungs for longer than K would have thought possible, and let it out in a burst of a laugh that tipped her head back and turned her face up to the sky.

  The path ran straight and level. They followed it east in the warm afternoon and the only sound they heard was birdsong and their own footsteps. They passed the joint between them until it burned down to a nub, and K thought Jolene would want the second one right away, but she strolled along for a while, humming, taking things in.

  There were trees growing on one side of the path, and on the other a channel of water, low and wide and dark. Jolene stopped and looked down into it, as if she were noticing it for the first time.

  “What is that?” she said.

  “It used to be the Erie Canal,” said K.

  “No way.”

  “I promise you.”

  “I didn’t know it was still around,” she said. “I thought it was from, like, the eighteen hundreds.”

  “A lot of it’s been filled in, but you can still find pieces of it here and there.”

  He watched her lean out over the water.

  “This path used to be part of it,” he said. “Mules would walk along here, towing the barges on the canal.”

  “I knew that,” she said. “We learned it in school. We used to sing a song about it.”

  “Low bridge,” K said. “Everybody down.”

  “That’
s the one.”

  “I’ve got a mule and her name is Sal,” he sang. “Fif-teen miles on the Erie Canal.”

  “Are you sure you never sang in a choir?”

  K laughed. Jolene was still leaning over the water, and he realized she was trying to see her reflection. He took her hand to steady her.

  “You don’t want to fall in,” he said.

  • • •

  I used to sing in a choir,” said Jolene.

  They were walking east again. She kept close to him so that once in a while their arms brushed together.

  “It was in high school,” she said. “We took a trip once to a competition in New York City. We didn’t win. But I remember it was Christmastime and we went to see a show. The Rockettes.” She seemed to hesitate, making up her mind how much to tell. “And I decided I wanted to do that, to be a dancer. But my mom said I wasn’t tall enough.”

  K kicked a small stone down the path. “How tall do you have to be?”

  “I don’t know.” The words came out soft and sad.

  “I could see you as a dancer,” he said. “You’ve got nice legs.”

  That cheered her. “You’re sweet,” she said, taking his arm shyly, as if they were kids and he was walking her home.

  “I’ve been tryin’ to figure you out,” she said. “I’ve decided you’re some kind of private eye, and you were following that guy today because his wife hired you. You’re supposed to catch him cheating. Am I close?”

  It was nothing like that, K thought.

  “It’s something like that,” he said.

  “So the woman on the balcony, was that the wife or the mistress?”

  “I can’t really talk about it,” K said. “It’s confidential.”

  Looking ahead on the path, he spotted a bullfrog lounging in a patch of sunlight. He stopped short, held Jolene back, pointed it out to her. After a few seconds he took a cautious step forward and the frog hopped to the edge of the canal. Another step and it leapt down into the dark water.

  Jolene went to look for it, standing on the side of the path, staring down at the rippling water. K came up behind her.

  “It’s gone,” she said.

  K said nothing. He wrapped his arms around her middle and she leaned back into him.

  “This is nice,” she whispered.