Lost Girls

chapter 16

The papers on my desk are reproducing. The case law briefs mating with the witness statements, the cross-examination binder having it off with the Post-it notes. Every time I return from the bathroom or a sandwich run there's a new litter of bewildered 81/2 x 11s blinking up at me. Nothing I can do about it but turn my eyes from their hungry faces, venture out into daylight once more for another interview. Today's visit offers about as much promise as the one with McConnell: my own client, Thom Tripp.

Outside, the morning's rain has picked up from a despondent drizzle to a straight and windless assault, heavy drops of cold gathering speed over miles of sky and exploding on my shoulders, pants legs, the crown of my head. I make a mental addition to my shopping list to go along with the thermal undies: heavy-duty umbrella. Too late for this morning, though, and by the time I splash up the front steps to the Murdoch Prison for Men I'm totally soaked, the rain finding its way into places where rain is usually forbidden, such as the inside of my shirt, my shoes, and the crack of my ass. As I approach the reception desk and see the same mischievous guard as before grinning at me, I'm uncomfortably aware of my buttocks squishing and slipping against each other like mating seals.

''Good morn', Mr. Crane. A wet one, isn't it?''

''Wet? You could say wet.''

''Here to see Mr. Tripp?''

''Would there be another reason?''

''No, no.'' He pretends to consider, bringing a thoughtful finger to his razor-burned chin. ''I suppose there wouldn't be, no.''

I'm taken again to Interview Room No. 1, and again the leprechaun tells me to make myself comfortable. It isn't easy, given that I'm once more forced to wait for what I suspect is an intentionally long time, shivering in a drenched suit better designed for striking a nicely cut shape before judges or ordering drinks at mahogany bars than keeping moisture away from the skin. By the time Tripp is produced, the room's institutional coolness has buried itself deep in the bones and I have to swivel my jaw loose before speaking.

''I'm sorry I haven't come to see you sooner, Mr. Tripp-- Thomas--but I've really been diving into things and I just haven't had a second.''

He doesn't respond, but sits down in the chair across the table from me without having to be coaxed.

''How have you been? Are you being treated satisfactorily?'' I ask, testing to see if his verbal skills are on-line.

''I'm fed. I walk around an empty gymnasium forty-five minutes a day. I have two-year-old magazines brought to where I sleep. I'd say I'm treated very well.''

''Well, that's good. Do you have any other concerns, then, anything at all, before we continue?''

He says nothing, but pushes his breath through a slight opening in his lips that whistles out in either resignation or boredom. His eyelids lower a notch at the same time, and I decide to plunge ahead before I lose him altogether.

''I wanted to go through some things with you now, Thomas, some fairly specific things relating to the Crown's evidence. I should tell you right off that so far it all looks quite encouraging. They've got no eyewitnesses, aside from some teachers who saw you and the girls walking to your car after school sometimes, and we're not denying that anyway, are we? But there are still some circumstantial bits and pieces that I'd like to be able to explain away. For instance, the muddy pants in your laundry hamper and the mud on your shoes. Is there any way that could have happened aside from walking through the woods at Lake St. Christopher?''

Tripp drops his elbows on the table and slides them forward as though to form a pillow on which to settle for a nap. But he doesn't go that far, and instead his head hangs unsteadily over his outstretched arms.

''They were dirty so I put them in the laundry,'' he says.

''Of course. But can you think of a way they might have gotten dirty?''

''I took them off to get into bed, saw they were covered in mud, and threw them in the hamper. That's the first time I noticed.''

''Fine, fine. You don't remember how the mud got there. The next thing I need to ask you about, though, are the pictures you kept in your bedroom.''

''Pictures?''

''The catalog pages of female models. Teenagers. On your wall. Remember?''

''Uh-hmm.''

''Could you explain them for me?''

''I liked them there.''

''Why's that?''

''They just stayed there.''

''Stayed for you to look at?''

''They couldn't go anywhere, could they?''

His head moves another inch closer to the table.

''Mr. Tripp, please. What I'm asking for here are specific responses to pieces of evidence that the Crown intends to advance. Understand? So if they say you had pictures of girls modeling underwear on your bedroom wall for bad reasons, we want to say they were there for normal, or at least, not so bad reasons. Now, may I make a suggestion here? Maybe you had those pictures because you lost your daughter in a custody fight with your ex-wife a few years ago, and you missed Melissa so much you put images of other little girls up there to ease your pain. How about that?''

''Melissa?''

''Your daughter. Were you thinking of her when you ripped those pages out of the catalog?''

''No. I don't know. I wasn't thinking. Just that if I put them there, they would stay. Because where could they go?''

Take a deep breath, plow on.

''One more question we need to cover, and this is probably the most important. It's about the bloodstains in the backseat of your car. The police found a few spots on the upholstery, and they've sent traces of them off to the lab along with some blond and dark hair found there as well to see if any of them match. Now, even if they do, all that it shows is that one or both of them were in the back of your car, and that they lost some blood there at some point. It's not conclusive, but you can see how that wouldn't be so good. So let me ask you: do you remember how those bloodstains got there?''

His head is turned away to where it drifted in the middle of my explanation, less from distraction than real puzzlement. The normally tight crease of his mouth is opened up and he chews at his lips with yellowed canines. I give him time. Perhaps these are signs of a struggle toward considered thought, and I'd be a fool to interrupt.

''You didn't mention the shirt,'' he says finally, keeping his head turned away.

''What shirt?''

''Didn't they find it?''

''Find what? The shirt? I'm not aware of any shirt.''

''It's just funny they didn't . . . they had a search warrant. . . .''

''Mr. Tripp, what shirt are you referring to?''

''My shirt. The one in the freezer. If they'd just asked I would've shown them, but they never asked. 'Thom, is there anything else here you could show us?' If they'd said that, I would've taken them to the garage out back, opened up the freezer, and handed it to them. But they never did.''

He laughs gently in disbelief. The kind of laugh one hears in coffee shops and post office lineups from people telling stories of foolish politicians or incompetent bosses. It's the most normal sound I've heard from him yet.

''So your shirt's in the freezer, and the police didn't find it in their search. Okay. But why did you put your shirt in the freezer in the first place?''

''Because it had blood all over it!''

With this Tripp lets out a roar, pulls his arms off the table, and brings them down upon it again. Big-time laughter, muscular and fierce as a shouted threat.

''Thomas, listen to me now. Whose blood was it?''

''It wasn't mine.''

''No? Then whose?''

He comes in close, leans across the table far enough that I can smell his yeasty breath.

''Krystal's. It was Krystal's blood,'' he says. ''Do you want to know how it got there?''

''First things first. Where's the shirt now?''

''It's funny, actually.''

''Thomas, tell me exactly where the shirt is. I'm serious. Right now.''

I check my watch.

''Locked inside the freezer, down in the garage out behind the building. They must have thought it belonged to the neighbors or something.''

''Where's the key?''

''Which key?''

''To the freezer.''

''Inside the flour jar in the cupboard. But the apartment's locked, and I don't know where that key is.''

''Not to worry. But listen carefully now: I advise you, strongly advise you, Thomas, to keep quiet about this, all right?''

His eyes endure a spasm of repeated blinks and his lips fold together and disappear into his mouth, but he says nothing more. I have no choice but to take this as confirmation of his word.

I get up and knock on the door, concentrate on keeping my breath even. But the guard takes longer than he should, and before I get out of there I hear Tripp's voice over my shoulder. Words I have to turn and have him twice repeat before I catch them.

''Melissa is my daughter's name,'' he says.

As I leave I glance back and see him being brought to his feet by the two men who will return him to his cell, his head shaking in wonder and a trembling smile of pride on his lips.

Late that night I go for a walk by Tripp's apartment. The convenience store below is dark, which I expected, the hours of business stuck on its door stating that it closes at eleven. The apartment above is dark as well. In fact the only light the building emits comes from the reflective band of yellow police tape that crosses the doorway to the staircase up to Tripp's. No car, homecoming drunk, or nocturnal dog walker has passed by since I've been here, which must be something close to half an hour.

I head up the lane that runs between the convenience store and the house next to it to where the garage is. Sticking my face up to its window I find the freezer, a lunar glow reflecting off its white enamel surface.

From there I pass through the side lane once more and around to the door up to Tripp's, ripping the police line off and sticking it into the pocket of my overcoat. Then I set to work on the lock. Although I've never done this sort of thing before, I've had the benefit of defending enough car thieves, b & e artists, and other unofficial locksmiths that I've acquired a pretty good idea of the techniques through osmosis. And as it turns out, this one isn't much of a challenge anyway. An old handle lock with a gaping keyhole that, after sticking my nosehair tweezers in and fiddling around for a couple minutes, clicks open without any trouble. Then up the stairs to Tripp's door, tweezers again at the ready, but there's no need. The fools left it open, and with a quick turn of my gloved hand I'm in.

Tripp was right about the key: buried in a Mason jar of enriched-white above the stove. But I don't leave yet. Move around the corner and into the living room, lit only by the orange fog that seeps through the window from the streetlight outside. Everything neat and tidy, teacherly even: the bookshelves organized according to binding (one wall of hardcovers, the next coffee-table books buttressing stacks of alphabetized paperbacks), the fourteen-inch TV topped by old greeting cards (''Lordy! Lordy! Look Who's Forty!''), the beige furniture arranged in a careful square on the perimeter of the matching beige rug. I'm expecting pictures of the daughter everywhere but there's no sign of her. The room little more than a low-budget stage set of a room, a bachelor pad before the bachelor has moved in.

But the bedroom's a different story. The police have left the catalog pages on the wall, every inch plastered with the crinkled gloss of giggling, pointing, hand-holding girls. On the bed, a fresh pile of clippings and stacks of YM and Seventeen. Waving arms about for balance on Roller-blades, applying cucumber slices to closed eyes, kissing a clear-skinned boy as parents peep out at them approvingly through living-room curtains. The discarded covers: ''Love Quiz: Is He Ever Going to Treat You Right?'' set on the pillow next to ''No More Bad Hair Days!'' From every corner comes the same sour odor that Tripp breathed at me across the interview-room table, the hot gust of his insides. Somewhere behind me the electric baseboard heater ticks and rages.

I hold my breath and back out, pull the door shut behind me, breathe again. Down the stairs I pull out the police line I'd ripped off on the way in. Tack it back to the door frame using the back of a hardcover Criminal Code I'd brought along for a hammer, then around again to the garage.

More lock luck there, or at least further evidence of the local constabulary's stupidity, for while the main door for the admission of cars is locked, the side door for the admission of humans isn't even properly closed, let alone bolted shut. Once in I pause for my eyes to gather enough light so I can shuffle over to the freezer. Trying to stick the fussy little key into its fussy little lock in the semidarkness results in a pounding chest pain so great, it can only be the final precursor to a full-blown coronary. Then, with my hand shaking in widening loops, the key suddenly slides in buttery smooth as though toying with me from the beginning, and the garage's silence is broken by the cryptlike squeak of the freezer's lid as I heave it open. For a moment my eyes are blinded from the light of the internal bulb reflecting off the crusted ice within. Then I see it, lying in a bundle next to a stack of frozen T-bones and tub of rainbow sherbet: a blue-striped button-down with a dozen dime-size stains over the arm and shoulder. I was expecting something more explicitly horrible, splashes of gory crimson on perfect white cotton or a clear plastic bag clotted by telltale pools and smudges. But it's just a shirt with spots on it.

I pull it out and tuck it inside my coat. Then I'm out the door, down the lane, and back in front of Tripp's building, half expecting the street to be clogged with police cruisers, curious neighbors, and snuffling search dogs. But there's not a soul but me. One arm across my chest holding Tripp's shirt in place, I walk back to the Empire Hotel with long strides, wondering whether anyone who looked my way would see a man who'd just done something wrong, or one whose head was lowered only to shield his eyes from the rain.