Lost Girls

chapter 37

That night I dream I'm standing on the shore of Lake St. Christopher, bare feet glowing through the green water. Behind me, up the slope of high weeds, the abandoned cottage at the far end of the lake set in solid shadow, its front window sending back a wavering version of the moon, blue, half sliced. Watching the pencil-size ripples lap in against my ankles. The kiss of rock and water.

And watch the ripples turn to waves. Splashing higher up my legs. Somewhere out over the dark water the fizz of held air released, beading up to the surface.

I try to turn but there's no feeling in my feet, invisible now under a cloud of silt. It takes both hands lifting up at the knees to pull myself out, turn, and slip up onto the stone-embedded beach.

Behind me something stands. Breathes.

Then I'm pulling the weeds out of the ground to hold myself up, tossing dew-slick clumps over my back as I kick up the hill. An idea that if I make it inside the cottage I'll be safe. But whatever follows from the water has now made it onto the shore, wet skin slapping over mud. Air clacking down into liquid lungs.

The steps up to the deck iced with moss and at the top my feet splay out from under me, knees slamming down hard onto the wood. I throw out my hands to break my fall and fingers are stabbed with splinters as they graze across the door.

Scramble to my feet again, kick myself forward. The door moves but doesn't open, jammed in its frame. The creak of another's weight behind me on the bottom step.

Pitch against the door again but there's no room or dry footing to start from. Stand there frozen, no sound but its rattling breath against my back.

The mouth opens. A hand on my shoulder, turning me around.

When I wake I call Goodwin's office expecting to leave a message on his machine but instead there's a shallow wind blown into the receiver as he picks up, gathering the strength to announce himself.

''Goodwin.''

''Hello, Pete. It's Barth.''

''I'm glad you called. Wanted to congratulate you on a fine performance this afternoon. Really first-rate provocation.''

''It's a specialty.''

''No doubt. What can I do for you?''

''I'd like to schedule a meeting. Nothing too terribly urgent. But maybe sooner would be better than later.''

''I must say this doesn't sound like you, Barth. Everything's either earth shattering or it doesn't matter at all with you. Am I right? Which is it?''

''More on the earth-shattering side, I guess.''

''How about now, then?''

''Tonight?''

''You're up, I'm up. And I wasn't planning on going out dancing.''

''Fine. I'll be there in twenty minutes.''

Great. I've called a meeting with the prosecution and I don't even know why. Not exactly why. But I can't possibly tell Goodwin I really called because the night was billowing up outside my windows again and I can't make the room bright enough even with all the lights on.

So as I slip my still-damp overcoat on over still-damp shoulders, I think of something I can say to Goodwin that will actually make sense. Around me Ontario Street has been transformed into a swaying kaleidoscope of colored light. Christmas decorations hanging off the lampposts, winking bulbs nestled amid molting pine boughs and tinsel. Above, wavering across the intersection, eight sneering reindeer haul a sled with a drunken Santa at the helm, his one arm severed at the shoulder and swinging accusingly at me as I pass. Ho-ho-hokum. The only town in the world that can make Christmas junk look worse than it normally does.

And none of this doing my concentration any favors either. By the time I buzz in at the courthouse side door and make my way to Goodwin's office I still have no idea what I'm doing here. But it feels safe in the empty hallways, so I tell myself to come up with something fast if only to avoid a quick return to the honeymoon suite.

''Barth? I can hear you out there. Come in, I've got something for you,'' Goodwin calls out from behind the door. I push it open to find him standing before his desk, arms held behind his back.

''I couldn't help noticing that your exposure to the precipitation we've been having hasn't improved since our last meeting, so yesterday I went out and got you this.''

Goodwin lets his arms swing out in front of him. In his right hand he holds a black umbrella with a duck's head for a handle.

''I just couldn't see a fellow officer of the court shivering like a hungry dog all day, every day. Someone had to do something.''

He extends the tip out to me and I take it.

''This is well above and beyond the call of duty, Pete. But thank you very much.''

Goodwin nods, shoos the glaze of surprise off my face with a wave of his hand. '' 'Twas nothing at all,'' he says, and shifts his way around to take his seat behind the desk. ''Now that protection from the elements has been taken care of, what is it you wanted to talk about?''

''Well, I suppose I'll just come right out with it, Pete,'' I say, unconsciously polishing the top of the duck's head with my palm. ''We can bring this whole thing to an end, you and I, if we choose. If bringing it to an end would ultimately be consistent with the principles of justice. You know that, don't you?''

Goodwin screws his eyebrows up at the base of his meaty forehead. ''Not sure I follow.''

''It's just that we're well past halfway through the Crown's evidence at this point, and unless you've got something devastating lined up, all your best shots have been made. And it's not enough. I don't want to sound judgmental or anything, but let's face it. There's a whole whack of reasonable doubt out there still and I haven't even started the defense's case yet. Given these circumstances, I felt obliged to suggest to you the possibility of withdrawing.''

''Withdrawing?''

''Dropping the charges. It would be wrong to go on. Let's pack it in and we can all have a drink and go home.''

I'm trying at a friendly smile, but the muscles necessary to keep it raised erupt in periodic tremors that loosen my skin into pliant rubber. In the silence that follows I imagine how Goodwin must see me, try to gauge how charm-less a sight I must make. A soggy, gray-faced addict pleading for an easy way out.

''Before I respond to your suggestion,'' Goodwin starts gravely, ''I want to ask you first if you're all right. I'm serious, Barth. You really look ill.''

''Don't worry about me. Why are you so concerned about me? I could stay with this thing all the way to the end. I could drag it on for months. But what's the point? We both know it'll end in an acquittal, and I'm just trying to save us all from time uselessly spent. That's all.''

''I understand. It's only that I can't help thinking--and I apologize if I'm way off here--I can't help thinking that maybe you're raising this issue at this point because you're hesitant about advancing the case for the defense.''

Goodwin's fingers drum over the distended dome of his stomach.

''No, no. Can't say you're right about that. Maybe I haven't made my position sufficiently clear here, Pete. I'm trying to save my time, my client's money, the resources of the court, and your own reputation by asking you to consider a withdrawal. See? I'm fine. This isn't about me. I'm concerned about you, about your position in this. Now, if there's an ace up your sleeve you'd better tell me about it now, because otherwise there's no case. Wouldn't you agree?''

''There's no ace, Barth. There's only what you already know. And it's not a lot, I admit. But there's something there. Two young people are dead--two people have been murdered--remember? If I back out now, I couldn't live with myself. Know what I mean?''

I hold my mouth shut, will the facial tremors into submission, look to him to continue.

''Maybe you're right. Hey, you probably are right. At the end of the day we don't have enough. But on the other hand, I don't think it's unethical for the Crown to press on. Think about it. There's still the car bloodstains and hair, remember? What are we going to do about that?''

''File it under Nice Try, that's what. Because we've got a witness, Dr. MacDougall from the medical clinic, who will testify that Krystal scraped her knee out smoking with the boys in the school yard and that Tripp brought her in for stitches. And as for the hair, well, it's no secret that Tripp would drive both of the girls home after their Literary Club meetings, and that it was their habit to sit together in the back.''

With this Goodwin unclasps his hands and sits forward, a bloodshot puzzlement replacing the sympathy in his eyes.

''So you weren't kidding in there today?''

''Shocking, isn't it? In fact, she was so scared of how angry the old man would be if he found out, she went to Tripp instead, and he covered for her. None of this helps the inferences you would have the jury draw from the DNA findings, does it?''

''No. I don't think it does.''

''So I'm really just thinking of your own ass here, Pete. Given that the ultimate outcome of our business here is obvious. So why don't we close the book on this one, before it becomes embarrassing. What do you say to that?''

''They were girls, Barth,'' he says. ''Look.''

He tosses two eight-by-tens of Ashley and Krystal over the desk at me and they surf across the other papers into my hands.

''Point being?''

''Just look.''

So I do. And it's their faces again, the same ones I've stared at for what is now probably an accumulation of several waking days.

Look at you look at me.

This is what weeks spent alone in a room full of pictures will teach you. That in time, every image turns into a kind of reflection. There, in the watery surface of the photographic finish. That's me. The face of the watcher caught watching himself.

All along, these pictures have been looking out from morning newspapers, TV screens, police bulletin boards, and from above 1-800 numbers on milk cartons to see the same thing they saw every day when they were alive. Always there out of the corner of their eyes as they cracked a Popsicle in half over the rim of the corner store garbage can or walked through town with heads thrown back in sugar-high laughter. Always the faces of men, lips held even and cheeks sucked tight in the hope it might make them invisible. Watching the girls and wishing for them, for the return of their youth, for sunglasses. Believing they are too old and obviously normal to be suspected of bad thoughts or of doing harm only with their eyes, but never entirely believing any of this either.

''So?'' I break away, toss them back into Goodwin's lap.

''He killed those girls, Barth. And not for money or revenge or something you might think defensible given the context. He killed them because in his mind they were nothing more than those photos there. Because it's not murder if all you kill is an idea.''

''There's not anything--''

''I'm probably not as good a lawyer as you,'' he interrupts. ''But don't make arguments with me that you don't really believe. I'm good enough at this business to tell the difference.''

I allow him a second for this.

''I'm not asking you to withdraw because of what you think I believe,'' I eventually try again. ''I'm asking you to withdraw because you're going to lose.''

''And I can't do it, Barth. It's because I believe Tripp is a murderer. And I don't want to piss you off but I think you believe that, too, and that's part of why you want to get out of here so badly. But I don't want to question your motives. I just have to question my own. And I can't withdraw the charges against your client without, well, dishonoring the memory of those girls. I know that sounds icky or something to you, but it's how I feel. My reputation can go down the river, but I can't turn back now. I'm sorry.''

Goodwin lowers his chin so that it seamlessly joins his neck and he rocks a little in his chair, its squeaking the only sound in the room.

''I guess I never really imagined you'd do it. But I had to try. This living-out-of-a-suitcase thing can drive a man to desperation, you know?''

I try at a laugh, but Goodwin says nothing, just raises his head high enough to look at me with liquid pity in his eyes once more.

''Thanks again for the umbrella,'' I say, and leave him alone in his office, too small for a man of his size.