The Drowning Child

50

Ren walked into the living room.

‘J. J. Nash?’

J. J. raised his hands in the air immediately. Ren could see Ruddock standing behind him in the same pose, an I’m-as-surprised-as-you-are look on his face, a pleading in his eyes.

You did this on purpose. You suckered me into a low-key, out-of-school-hours first encounter with your fugitive suspect nephew.

‘Ren,’ said Ruddock, firmly, ‘you can lower the weapon. J. J. will explain everything. I had no idea he was going to show up.’

‘He didn’t,’ said J. J. ‘I was away. I just wanted to stop by and let him know I was thinking of him.’

Thinking of him? What?

‘I just didn’t like the idea of him being here alone tonight,’ said J. J.

What? I’m totally lost.

Ruddock picked up on it. ‘It’s my wife’s anniversary tonight.’

Oh, Jesus. He didn’t want to be alone tonight – he wanted to be with someone who would understand. Grieving woman, grieving town. Poor, adorable Ruddock. What a great fucking support I turned out to be.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I had no idea...’

Ruddock batted away the apology, but she could see his compassion for her. She realized she was still pointing the gun at a terrified J. J. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. He looked like he had never seen one before.

Ren lowered the weapon, put it back in its holster.

I thought that went well.

Ruddock stepped forward. ‘J. J. – this is Special Agent Ren Bryce with the FBI.’

‘Oh,’ said J. J. ‘I thought... you know.’ He gestured to the table, shrugged. ‘It looked like a date, which I thought was weird anyway.’

I’m blushing. I never blush.

‘And then she’s got a gun,’ said J. J. ‘And... I can’t wrap my brain around it. I thought you were being tricked by one of those women who prey on lonely men, those Black Widow ladies—’

By the time J. J. had finished, Ruddock was laughing hard. ‘Ever since J. J. could talk, he didn’t know when to stop,’ said Ruddock. ‘No filter.’

Keep a straight face. This man could still be a child killer.

‘J. J. – you know we’ve been looking for you, right?’ said Ren.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I’m here now. I came back. I just... didn’t want to do that until I could. Until I had an alibi for those days. I knew I didn’t look good, OK?’

‘Sit down,’ said Ren. ‘Talk to us. Who are all these people you’re lying to? And why?’

Ruddock cleared space at the dining table.

J. J. shrugged. ‘My alibi... for the dates in question... I read about them in the paper... was, well, it was Mrs Dennehy’s daughter.’

Ren exchanged glances with Ruddock.

I know what you’re thinking: a daughter of Mrs Dennehy’s is bound to be at least fifteen years older than him? And: Go, Mrs Dennehy’s daughter? So, she was the older blonde woman with the great nails.

‘Keep talking...’ said Ren.

‘I’ve been seeing Mrs Dennehy’s daughter,’ said J. J. ‘She’s back in town – she’s over there now with her mother, breaking it to her that she’s in love with a plumber “twenty years her junior” is how she describes it. I didn’t want to talk to you until she talked to her mother first.’

‘OK – can we stop calling her Mrs Dennehy’s daughter?’ said Ren. ‘It sounds like a bad Irish movie. Does she have a name?’

‘Eileen.’

Ruddock laughed. ‘Because that’ll knock the Irish out of the whole thing.’

‘Look,’ said J. J., ‘she’s divorced with a mean ex-husband. It’s a... sensitive situation. Hence, we disappeared for a while.’ He spoke like ‘hence’ was a new word in his vocabulary.

Perhaps discovered in the script of Mrs Dennehy’s Daughter.

J. J. turned to Ruddock. ‘I’m so sorry if I made things awkward for you on a professional level.’

Ruddock nodded. ‘It’s OK.’

J. J. talked them through his nascent love affair with Eileen Dennehy, whom he met when he was fixing a radiator in her mother’s bedroom in December.

J. J. the twenty-six-year-old biker plumber, with Eileen, the close-to-fifty divorcée, on the back of his Harley with the wind in her hair. It explains why her mother was saying she was having a ‘switched-off’ long weekend.

‘We’ll talk to Eileen tomorrow,’ said Ren. ‘Now that we’ve cleared up your whereabouts on the other dates, on February eleventh a young boy died – Luke Monroe – right around the block from the Dennehy house. So, I’d like you to talk me through the last Saturday that you were there...’ She paused. ‘That Rose knows about...’

J. J. laughed. ‘Ha – good point. Not that we’ll be talking to her about any of that. She doesn’t need to know, right?’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘No, she doesn’t.’

‘We didn’t get it together in her mother’s house, so you know,’ said J. J.

Thanks for that.

‘I called to the house,’ said J. J. ‘Mrs Dennehy was there, she brought me in, and I went to check out the downstairs bathroom. There was a problem with the toilet, but I didn’t have the right part, so I told her I’d go order it as soon as I could, and be back to her.’ He paused. ‘It was a busy time. Then I was kind of afraid to show my face again.’

Ren nodded. ‘Did you see Caleb that Saturday?’

‘Yes – he was in the garden.’

‘Do you know Caleb?’ said Ren.

‘Not really,’ said J. J. ‘But I said “hi”. He didn’t answer. He might have had headphones on. I don’t know.’

‘Where did you park your truck that day?’ said Ren.

‘I parked on another street, cut through a laneway down the side of one of my other client’s gardens into Mrs Dennehy’s.’

Ren got her phone and went to Google Maps. She showed him the Monroes’ street. She went wider.

‘Where were you parked?’

‘Here,’ he said, pointing to a house two blocks away.

‘Would you have had to drive past the Monroes’ house to get where you were going when you were finished at Mrs Dennehy’s?’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said J. J. ‘I would have gone out the way I came in – through the neighbor’s garden, got in my van and went in the opposite direction.’

Shit.

‘Did you see anything suspicious that day?’ said Ren.

‘Nothing,’ said J. J. ‘Nothing I can think of.’

‘Could you email me details of all your clients when you get home tonight?’ said Ren.

‘Sure,’ said J. J. ‘No problem.’

‘And we’re going to need you to come down to the station in the morning, to make a formal statement,’ said Ren.

J. J. nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘In the meantime, don’t go anywhere,’ said Ren. She smiled. ‘And keep your cell phone with you.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

When Ren got back to the hotel, she spent two hours going through Deb McLean’s list of websites. She texted her when she was done.

Deb phoned her. ‘It’s pretty grim, isn’t it?’

‘Yes!’ said Ren. ‘Why do men want to hurt women so much? Why do they get off on women who look like they’re dying? These women look so fucking terrified. There are women chained to the bottom of pools. And these fat fucks in scuba masks offering... I can’t even go there. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, the aqua-erotic stuff ended up being my gateway drug.’ She let out a breath. ‘God, I love breathing. There’s some fucked-up shit out there. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know that already, but when you are actively looking for it, and you open the portal... I mean – there are photos of women in all kinds of torture gear and then – and this is the true horror – a separate selection of women in torture gear while wearing socks. Socks... I swear to God, please strap me up in leather and chains, but if you use the opportunity to put socks on me, you’ll see how quickly I can get out of a ball gag.’

‘I know, right?’ said Deb.

‘There are so many forums – posts by people talking about all kinds of reasons they do what they do. Lots about how they nearly drowned as kids, and the sexual high that gave them, and how they’ve tried to reproduce that feeling or those circumstances ever since. I nearly drowned as a kid and it was about as sexual as thinking you’re going to fucking die at any moment. And it’s what you said – they associate whatever was going on, or whatever was happening around them, with that sexual experience. Some of these people are really anguished, though – it’s like “take the pain of this obsession away”. They want to be normal...’

‘Most of them think they are,’ said Deb.

‘I kept getting this horrible feeling—’

‘Sinking sensation?’

‘Stop! I kept thinking I was going to see a photo or a video of someone I know.’

‘That’s why I avoid amateur porn sites... hello, neighbor! Hello, kind man from the dry cleaner’s!’

Ren laughed.

‘OK – step away from the ASSes,’ said Deb. ‘You get it. There’s no need to water-torture yourself...’

‘I know too much,’ said Ren. ‘You know, like, next time I’m in a hotel pool...’

‘You know as well as I do,’ said Deb, ‘that people go where their needs are likely to be met. You won’t find a pedophile hanging around a retirement home. Terrible example – I’m ignoring the ones who might be residents or employees – but you know what I mean.’

‘I’ll do one more tour of duty,’ said Ren. ‘But, Deb... it is not purty.’

‘Try seeing them after the fun and games. Losing an eye would be the best-case scenario.’