The Body of David Hayes

NINE

LIZ CAME THROUGH THE LAROSSAS’ front door timidly, knowing she was on Lou’s turf, and feeling strange about it. Her job, her “assignment,” was to get Beth to talk. Lou had offered to drive Beth to the hospital, but all she would say was that Tony had told her to stay here.

In all their years together, Liz and Lou had never crossed over like this-Lou investigating the bank; Liz walking into one of his crime scenes. That was how it felt to her: a crime scene; not Beth and Tony’s house, where she and Lou had attended a christening reception only a few months earlier. She thought of this living room the way it had been then: loud voices, laughter, beer and the smell of cigarettes on a passing suit. Kids running around in their Sunday best. Elton John on the stereo. Beth’s tight dresses that reminded Liz of Sophia Loren in an old film-much too low at the neck, tailored at the waist to cling to her swaying hips, too retro to qualify as retro, as if she shopped the Salvation Army. But Tony wasn’t much for fashion either, so that visiting them left Liz feeling as if she’d stepped into an old black-and-white television show. The LaRossas had never left the late sixties.

Beth and Lou occupied the room’s love seat, a plush white, fuzzy carpet spongy beneath Liz’s shoes. She saw several patrolmen gathered in the kitchen. The twins were not in sight, though a distant crying pulled Liz’s attention toward the second floor. “Who’s with the twins?” Liz asked.

“They’re upstairs with Mary,” Beth said to Liz. Judging by Lou’s relieved expression, Liz had extricated the first words of significance.

“They’re both okay?” Liz asked.

“Fine,” Beth said. Dazed, she told Liz, “Tony said to stay right here.”

Beth had been run over by the events. Her reddish, shoulder-length hair, usually worn with a severe flip and needing gobs of hairspray, hung lifeless and tangled. Her large brown eyes that typically animated her speech dimmed in a squinted, gloomy sadness. Her high cheekbones looked sunken, and her plucked eyebrows, always arched too high, lay flat behind a scowl. But nothing limited the beauty of her Italian skin. It possessed an almost artificial luminescence that knocked ten years off her thirty-eight.

Liz couldn’t tell how long she’d been in her clothes-a white turtleneck and casual black pants with an elastic waist. It might have been all night. She had that weary look about her.

On a nod from Lou, Liz said, “You understand that Tony collapsed, Beth? At the bank. We’d like to get you to the hospital.”

“They said not to go anywhere. That they’d call when it was okay to leave.”

“Who?” Boldt asked.

“There were two of them,” Beth said in a tight whisper, her eyes locked in a stare as she relived events. “Stayed with us all night. Tony was supposed to do something at the bank for them. They said they were staying with us until it was done. Then, later, one of them got a call on his cell phone, and they just up and left. In a hurry. Told me not to leave the house, not to use the phone until Tony came home.”

Liz asked, “What was Tony asked to do for them, Beth?”

She shook her head back and forth, a child not supposed to reveal a secret. “They gave him a phone and a disk. That’s all I know about it.”

Boldt wrote on the pad, faster than Beth was supplying answers, and then tore the piece of notepaper loose and, leaning across toward Liz, left a laundry list of questions sitting in front of her.

Descriptions?

Timing?

Exactly what happened?

Demands?

Two cell phones?

Liz thought there might be something to the order he’d written them in. She felt privileged to be included and wanted to do this right. She and Beth could not be considered best friends, but Beth had, on several occasions, unloaded onto her about her fertility problems, talking extremely personally and graphically. Every relationship was viewed differently by those involved. Lou took her affair with David much more seriously than she ever had; Beth might believe them far closer friends than she did, so Liz proceeded, combining sympathy with a forced intimacy.

She asked Beth what “they” looked like, and when Beth stammered and began sliding back toward emotion rather than reason, Liz salvaged her by prodding with descriptions of her own: tall, fat, loud, dark?

“There were two of them,” Beth repeated, her eyes darting between Lou and Liz.

Lou said softly, “We know they told you to say nothing about it, Beth. Tony’s going to get better, and when he does, he could be in some trouble here, and no one wants to see that happen.”

“They made him do it!” Beth shouted loudly. One of the patrolmen poked his head out from the kitchen and then retreated. “They told him they’d hurt the twins if they didn’t get a call within the hour. Then, when they did get the call, I don’t think it was what they expected. They panicked and took off. They must have heard he’d collapsed.” She added cautiously: “I’m afraid to leave. They told me not to leave.”

Liz asked again if Beth could describe them.

Beth explained once again that there were two of them, both wearing nice suits. Good-looking men whom she’d initially taken to be FBI agents or cops. They’d arrived at the back door the night before, just after dinner. “Tony was careful. Wouldn’t let them into the house. But then when they mentioned the embezzlement investigation and that they’d rather talk in private, he let them in.”

Liz repeated, “Two men. Dark suits. Good-looking.”

“The man who spoke… the one on the left… didn’t have much of an accent. But the other one… once they were inside the door… I knew something was wrong.”

“What kind of accent?” Liz asked.

“Thick. I don’t know. Italian? Russian? Not French, not Spanish.”

She glanced at Lou’s list. Description and timing taken care of, she moved on, asking Beth what happened.

Beth wormed her fingers as she spoke. “They were polite at first. I had no idea… ” She was interrupted by a muted peal of joy from the upstairs. The twins were clearly enjoying themselves, oblivious to their mother’s contained terror a floor below. Beth looked up toward them, her face bunching as tears threatened.

Lou asked, “What did they say they were doing here?”

“All I remember is that all at once they were pushing Tony. The other one pulled me, turned me, and covered my mouth. It happened so quickly.” She rubbed her wrists where Liz could see thin but deep red bruises. “They had the twins then. I don’t remember how, exactly. Tony and I… we did exactly as they asked. I stayed with the children in the living room. The one who couldn’t speak so well watched us while the other one took Tony into the kitchen. There was talking but I couldn’t hear.”

“For how long?” Lou asked.

“Five minutes? Ten? Everything slows down, you know? Did you know that? Slows down to where it feels like forever. All I wanted was them gone. To leave us alone. It seemed like forever.”

Liz asked, “You don’t know what they said to Tony?” She saw immediately that this question frustrated Lou, and she resolved that before asking anything more, she would wait for a signal from him.

“The one who could speak… it was something to do with the bank. Tony came in and told me to do whatever the man asked, that all he had to do was go to the office for a few minutes. Everything was going to be okay as long as we did what they asked. They’d stay at the house until they confirmed Tony had done whatever it was they were asking him to do.”

“You said they panicked and took off,” Lou said. “When was this?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Beth said.

Liz reminded her that Lou wanted to get Beth to the hospital, if possible.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Beth said. “I’m not leaving the children, and I’m not going without them, and I’m not taking them with me. You see? I’m staying.”

“It’s over,” Lou said.

“No!” she replied sharply. “Just because you say it’s over doesn’t mean it’s over.”

“No, of course not,” Lou said, shooting Liz a quick look, which she took to mean she should continue.

“You don’t know for sure what they asked Tony to do?” she asked.

“Just something at the bank. That’s all. That they would hurt him-us-if he didn’t do this… ” She looked up at Lou and burst into tears. “I did what they told me to do.”

Liz moved over to comfort her. “Of course you did, Beth. It’s not your fault.”

Lou excused himself and walked into the kitchen. A lot of male voices in there, but Liz couldn’t make out what was said.

Liz said gently, “We need to get you down to the hospital, Beth. That’s why Lou asked me here. Mary’s with the twins. The police can protect them better here, but Tony needs you right now. These men wanted something from Tony, wanted him to do something-we think we know what it might have been.”

Beth jerked her head up to meet Liz’s eyes, some of the brightness returned.

“Tony’s security clearance allows him a great deal of access at the bank,” Liz said. She knew another possibility existed, but didn’t mention it: that Tony had been part of the earlier embezzlement, that everything that had happened here this morning connected directly to the past, just as what had been happening to her also connected to her past.

“Tony’s a good man,” Beth mumbled. “You’ve seen him with the twins.”

“He needs you, Beth. We’ve got to get you down to the hospital. Why don’t I check with Mary and make sure everything’s okay?” Mary was Tony’s older sister and the mother of five. “If she’s got it under control, we’ll let Lou take you to see Tony. Okay?”

Beth nodded, though appeared off in another realm. Lou signaled a patrolwoman, who came over and sat across from Beth. Liz hurried upstairs, knowing in advance that Mary had everything under control. Finding it so, she returned to the living room and won Lou’s attention through the kitchen door.

She told him somewhat loudly so Beth could hear, “Beth has agreed to go see Tony with you. I told her there’d be plenty of officers here while Mary looks after the twins.”

“Absolutely,” Boldt said.

Beth stood up from the couch, and the patrolwoman hooked an arm to steady her.

Liz said, “Let’s get you freshened up, and Lou will drive you over there.” She felt nearly desperate to get back to the bank and keep her people on point, in Tony’s absence. Like it or not, the merger quickly approached, and her team was directly responsible for a smooth transition. She contained her impatience, willing to give this a few more minutes.

Not long thereafter she pulled the Boldt minivan back into the bank’s subterranean parking garage and her reserved spot. She shut off the engine and collected her purse. Climbing out of the van, she was immediately jolted by the ringing of her cell phone, and she scrambled to answer it.

Occupied as she was, her left hand holding her purse while her right hand dug down into a pocket for the phone, she jerked back but did not scream as a hand clapped over her mouth. Broad daylight, was her first inexplicable thought. The garage glowed beneath a gloomy twilight of tube lighting. By the time her panicked brain registered anything beyond the time of day, she’d been catapulted through the van’s open sliding door, a bag placed over her head and a wide piece of tape slapped around her head, holding it to a headrest while wedging open her mouth. She heard the tinkle of keys along with the contents of her purse spill. She heard her cell phone beep and the familiar sound of the van’s seat belt warning buzzer, but the engine did not start. In the course of events her arms were yanked and taped together behind the seat, although her wrists did not touch. All this in a matter of ten to fifteen seconds.

By the time someone pinched at her eyes and pulled the fabric away, her head was swooning toward unconsciousness. She heard a sound she assumed to be the glove box, followed by another familiar sound she couldn’t place. She struggled, attempting to whip her head side to side. Her initial fear was rape-these were men, and she was a woman, and she’d been immobilized and her hands taped apart. Her ankles were bound too, now that she thought to try to move them. But sitting up? In the backseat of a car? When the first of the two eyeholes was cut away and she saw the front seat of the van empty, she braced herself, expecting to be groped or molested. Instead, her vision was temporarily blocked as a hairy wrist crossed its path and a second eyehole was cut from the fabric. Then she heard a metallic click, thinking first and foremost of Lou’s Leatherman all-in-one tool, a gift she’d given him not too many Christmases ago, but a gift she’d never seen him use since.

They’re going to cut me. The thought threw her into a sudden frenzy. She feared anything to do with fire, drowning, or cutting. She’d have rather gotten struck by a train or hit head-on by a truck than any of those three.

The van’s door slid shut, silencing her surroundings. Only a small hum penetrated the vehicle. She tugged at her arms, but to no avail, then quit altogether as she tired and took in more of her surroundings. The sounds she’d heard had been the operation of the van’s VCR and a videotape being inserted into a deck that hid in the console between the front seats. She knew this because the tiny television screen that folded down from the ceiling shone a bright blue, a bold white arrow pointing to the right.

When the first of the sordid images filled that small screen, she thought this some kind of perverse, sick joke-someone tying her up and forcing her to watch pornography. Terror again stole through her as she imagined some stranger sitting directly behind her in the third seat, watching the video as he contemplated where to start with her.

But then the woman, naked and on all fours, her blurry bare backside toward the camera, slowly turned around, a man’s chest and shoulders seen behind her. All at once the background looked far too familiar, logs, a lamp, a clock. All at once Liz couldn’t breathe, choked, the tape and hood pressing so tightly into her open mouth. She screamed, but barely heard her own voice. She squinted her eyes shut as that face on the screen slipped first into profile and then turned toward the camera’s hidden lens. But she looked again, driven by a defiant curiosity. The bare breasts and shoulders so familiar. The hair. The line of the neck. The curve of the hips.

A face, all her own.

For all her endless hours in this vehicle as driver, Liz realized she had never once sat in these backseats. The minivan’s VCR typically ran nothing more offensive than Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz, something to occupy the kids in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or for the nearly two-hour drive up to their cabin. Liz looked away but found her blurry eyes wandering back to the small screen in a wave of self-loathing. The video was date- and time-stamped in the upper right-hand corner, a date she would have done anything to erase from her life.

The camera angle, possibly shot from inside the cabin’s closet, offered an unobstructed view of the bed, where Liz, sporting a haircut she would never have again, a haircut that also dated the event, once again turned to face the camera. The contact of skin, the silent motions captured in grainy black-and-white, the pursed lips and agonized faces all added up to an unattractive, disgusting carnal dance that debased her.

From outside the parked van, one saw only the flashing blue light from the screen playing out on a woman’s face wet with tears, and a gaping mouth held open by silver tape. As the woman struggled to be free, the van rocked side to side, as if driven by a strong wind. Inside, atop the stained carpet floor, lay her daughter’s second favorite doll, a coloring book, and a plastic bag of crushed Goldfish crackers.

She felt half dead as she watched, amazed at the familiarity of the whore on the tape. Strange coincidences. Even the birthmark on the outside flank of her right buttock looked just like her own. “My little Martian,” her husband called it.

It couldn’t possibly be she who had done these things, her heart told her, but of course her eyes proved otherwise. Back and forth she went, wife, mother, sinner, slut.

Slowly, in timing with her efforts to free her wrists, she came to understand the effect this videotape might have on her own and her husband’s careers. Their lives. More important, their children if the tape ever went public. What kind of looks would the children endure from their teachers, the parents of their friends? How would it affect her own relationship with her children, for the rest of their lives? She attempted to measure the fallout if the tape were sent to Phillip, the date confirming a connection to David Hayes at the time of the embezzlement. The Seattle Times. Posted on the Internet. Her world shrank.

Her cell phone rang from the front seat, where it had been dumped from her purse. With one mighty effort the tape tore and her hands came free, and only then did she see that one edge had been cleanly cut, only then did she connect this with the sounds she had heard just before she’d been closed inside. The Leatherman tool. They had wanted her to free herself.

She tore the tape from her mouth and slipped off the hood, slammed the retractable video screen up into its locked position, and lunged for the phone. She fell to her knees, her ankles still taped.

“Help me!” she hollered into the phone before her mind registered that this tape must never be revealed to anyone. Any kind of help was the last thing she wanted.

A deep male voice that nearly hid the rich, Eastern European accent said, “Next time you are asked to do something, we will expect you to do it yourself, not send a replacement. Cooperate, and you can be the last person to ever see this tape. Be ready to act at a moment’s notice.” Disconnected.

Standing away from the van, listening carefully, one could hear, along with the whine of passing traffic, a woman’s painful sobbing from within. A woman stretched thin between the past and the present, a woman faced with the reality of self-loathing and the disintegration of all things good, of all things held dear and sacred. Bared before her eyes. Destroyed.