The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 10

We sit there for an awkward moment, not knowing what to say, until Jack grabs the remote and turns on the television.

It’s impossible. What could be appropriate? He scowls as he blips from one hopeless choice to another. Baseball, crime shows, sitcoms, a Frontline program about the teen fashion industry.

“Dad,” Liz says.

Jack turns the television off. But when it goes dark with its electronic fizzle, we can hear them in the living room, conducting their search. It sounds like they’re taking the place apart. The counterpoint of conversation, the sounds of doors and drawers being opened, the audible evidence of the search – all this disturbs me. Even though I pushed for the search, it still feels like an invasion of privacy.

And suddenly the word invasion, which with its military connotations always seemed too forceful for this usage, seems perfect. Listening to these strangers pawing through my family’s belongings makes me feel as if I’m under attack, my territory violated. I hate the sound of their footsteps, the murmur of voices, the occasional spurt of laughter. It bothers me so much that I lift the remote from the end table, press the power button.

A mistake. I’ve caught the top of the ten o’clock news. There’s a collective intake of breath as the photo of the boys flashes on the screen, the announcer saying: “No news in the case of the missing Callahan twins…”

“Oh, God,” Liz says, as I punch the television off.

It’s almost a relief when a jittery redhead with bad skin and green fingernails arrives to take our fingerprints.

We all endure this woman’s bad temper as, one at a time, she calls us to the seat next to her. Using the coffee table as a platform, she presses our fingertips into an ink pad and then rolls out each one onto a prepared card. As she rolls my left pinky and then lifts it straight up from the file card, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something sordid about the process. The card contains nothing but the minimal information required to identify me, that and the oblong blobs left by my fingertips, each with its own intricate pattern of whorls and lines.

I am given moistened towelettes to remove the ink from my hands while my mother takes my place. Maybe it’s because the Xanax has worn off, maybe it’s the half a dozen cups of coffee she’s downed since her arrival. Whatever the reason, she can’t seem to allow the technician to manipulate her fingers. She keeps twitching, moving the fingers herself. She apologizes and the tech issues an exaggerated sigh as she rips each messed-up card in two and tosses it into the wastebasket.

“Relax,” she tells my mother for what must be the tenth time, “let me move your finger. You’re rolling it – see, you’re smearing it.” Her tone of voice varies between accusing and patronizing. “Let me manipulate your fingers. Don’t roll…”

“I’m not rolling,” my mother says. “I’m trying not to.”

“You are.”

“Stop bullying her,” I say. “This is voluntary, correct?” My mother casts me a grateful look, but she’s beginning to sniffle.

“Let’s try again,” the fingerprint bitch says, filling out another card with yet another exasperated sigh.

This time, it goes well for a minute or two, but then, Mom twitches or something.

“You’re doing it again!”

My mother breaks down, begins to cry.

“Leave her alone,” my father says, getting to his feet.

“Excuse me,” the tech says, extricating herself from her seat and marching toward the door. “I don’t get paid enough to put up with this grief.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say in an automatic tone.

“Do you want some water, Glenna?” my father asks in an anxious voice. “Alex – do you think we could get some water in here?”

“Sure.” I drag myself up from the couch and speak to the policeman posted in the hall. I realize – and the thought fills me with guilt – that I am tired of my parents, that I wish they would go home. Jack, too. I know they’ve come because they had to come and lend whatever support they can. I guess I’d be hurt if they hadn’t come. But it feels as if Liz and I have to take care of them.

Shortly after the policeman brings the water, Shoffler shows up. He stands in the threshold and raps his knuckles against the inside of the doorjamb. “Can I have a word with you, Alex? With you and Mrs. Callahan?”

There’s something about the look on Shoffler’s face that freezes my heart. First of all the latex gloves he’s wearing – they’re all wearing them – provide a chilling, clinical note. I stand up fast, as if there’s a rope attached to the top of my head and someone’s yanked me to my feet. “What is it?”

“You can speak freely right here,” my father says, with a little inclusive sweep of his hand. “We’re all family.”

Shoffler holds his hand up, palm toward my father like a cop stopping traffic. “Just the parents,” he says, with something that’s more like a grimace than a smile.

Liz is gray. We follow Shoffler upstairs into my study, where a uniformed officer, also gloved, sits on the corner of my desk holding a clipboard. Shoffler introduces the man: “This is Officer David Ebinger.”

Shoffler explains that it’s the custom, post-O.J., to have a single officer handle evidence, from tagging and bagging, to checking it in and out of the evidence room, to introducing it in court. “We have to establish chain of custody,” he says, in a matter-of-fact way, “in case there’s a court case somewhere down the line.”

We nod. We understand.

And then Shoffler closes the door. “We found something,” he says.

I can’t say a word.

On my desk sits a brown cardboard box about the size of a shoe box. Its flaps are open, splayed to the sides, and taped to it is a white tag with writing on it. Shoffler nods to Ebinger and then, using the eraser end of a pencil, extracts from the box a crumpled and badly stained piece of clothing. Once he’s got the whole thing clear of the box, I see what it is: a yellow T-shirt. The stain is reddish brown and I know instantly that it’s blood.

Liz moans. I put my arm around her and she leans in to me, turning her face in to my chest. She can’t look, but I can’t stop looking. Shoffler is trying to gently shake out the piece of cloth suspended from his pencil. It must have dried in this crumpled state, and it’s so stiff his efforts don’t accomplish much. For some reason I feel compelled to watch, filled with dread that the shirt will slip off the pencil and fall to the desk and that I must not let this happen. Finally the folds of fabric in one part of the bunched T-shirt lose their adhesion. It’s like a clenched fist opening, and suddenly I can see what the bunched folds hid, a palm-sized flat expanse of the T-shirt.

I don’t need to see any more.

What’s visible is the cartoonish drawing of a fish tail, the tail of what I know to be a whale, the interior of which I know to be printed with the word NANTUCKET.

“That’s Kevin’s,” I say. I seem to speak without volition. “Sean has a green one.” I can’t take my eyes off the shirt. I try to concentrate on the fabric, exclude the image of Kevin in the shirt. There’s a weird metallic taste in my mouth. Liz is shivering in my arms.

“Where did you find it?” I hear myself ask.

“Could you confirm that, Mrs. Callahan? I mean the identity of the shirt?”

Liz stiffens, lifts her head away from my chest. She turns her head, takes a look. She makes a terrible little sound. Her hand flies up to her mouth. She manages a few choppy nods.

Shoffler presses her. “Are you telling me the shirt belonged to your son Kevin?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you find it?” I ask again, but again Shoffler doesn’t answer. He maneuvers the shirt back into the box, pushes the flaps shut with the pencil. Ebinger meticulously tapes it closed.

“There’s one more thing,” Shoffler says. “Would you follow me?”

Shoffler leads, Ebinger follows in our wake. I try not to speculate on the fresh horror he’s going to show us. I concentrate on looking at the back of Liz’s head, the slight sway of her dark ponytail. We enter the boys’ room. I can hardly breathe.

“We decided to leave this in situ for the moment,” Shoffler says, levering open the door of the closet with his pencil. “Can you explain this?” he asks, using the pencil to point to the top shelf. He moves aside, allowing us to peer into the closet. There, next to Candyland and Sorry is a small glass mixing bowl full of a clear liquid. It’s on the very edge of the shelf, ready to topple.

“What is it?” Liz asks. “Is it water?”

“We’re not certain yet – but, ah – as I said, if you can tell us what it’s for, that would help.”

Liz looks at me, but all I can do is shrug. I have no idea what a bowl of liquid is doing on the top shelf of the boys’ closet.

“Did they have a pet or something?” Shoffler asks. “I mean a frog, a bug… a fish? That would make sense.”

“I don’t think so,” I tell him.

“Hunh,” Shoffler says, “you don’t think so.” He turns toward Liz. “Mrs. Callahan?”

Liz just shakes her head and frowns and gives me a funny look.

“We’ll take a sample of the liquid and print the bowl. Is it your bowl, by the way?” He looks from me to Liz.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess so.”

“I don’t recognize it,” Liz says.

“Hunh,” Shoffler says again. “Well, Dave is going to deal with this,” he says, nodding toward the closet, “and the crew can take on the family room. You can have the run of the rest of the house now.” He removes his gloves.

“Detective-”

“It shouldn’t take long,” he says, ignoring me, “and then we’ll be out of your hair. I expect everybody’s pretty tired,” he continues, “especially the grandparents.”

“The shirt,” Liz squeaks, “does that-?”

“Sorry,” Shoffler says, retreating into formality, “the shirt is evidence, and questions about it will have to wait. It would be premature to speculate. We’ll send it to the lab and then I’ll be in a better position to discuss it.”

“But-”

He’s moving toward the door now, walking past Liz and me. There seems to be no choice but to follow him out into the hall. We pause before returning to the family room, so that the two policemen coming out of my study can get to the front door. Each of them carries a large cardboard box sealed with evidence tape.

“What’s that? What are you taking?”

“I think it’s your computer.”

“My computer?”

“Relax, Alex. It’s routine. The kidnapper was here, right? Naturally we have to remove some items to examine them. Detective Ebinger will give you a search warrant inventory when we’re finished, and you should look that over. As for the computer, what if the boys have been in touch with someone over the Internet? We have to examine that possibility.”

Liz turns on me. “You did have parental controls on that thing, didn’t you, Alex?”

“They never used the computer.”

“Alex!”

“They never went near it! I don’t even think they knew how to turn it on.” This is probably true. The Apple engineers disguised the iMac’s on/off switch so well that when I bought the machine, I had to call the shop to ask where it was.

“You promised me.”

“Liz-”

Shoffler interrupts. “Alex,” he says, “would you be willing to take a polygraph test?”

“What?”

I say what, but I heard him. I also know what it means. Murder – even the murder of children – is often a family affair. When children go missing, the parents are automatic suspects. I can hear Officer Christiansen’s voice during our walk back to the Jeep in that deserted field outside the festival gates. “Nine times out of ten, it’s a parent.”

Who could forget the Susan Smith case? The smiling faces of her sons blanketed the news for days as their distraught mother begged for their return, the return of boys she herself had sent rolling into the cold water of a lake, belted into their car seats. How could she do it? I wondered – everyone wondered – did she watch the water rise, did she watch them go under? I also remember a couple in Florida who made tearful appeals for the return of their adorable daughter, whose mangled body was later discovered buried in their backyard.

Would you be willing to take a polygraph test? It is in this company – Susan Smith, the tearful infanticidal Florida couple – that I am being placed.

So I know. Asking me to take a polygraph test means that the bloody shirt… or maybe they’ve found something else in the house… makes them think I might be involved in the boys’ disappearance. And, of course, I also know that they’re wrong.

Before I can answer Shoffler, he does that traffic cop thing with his hand. “You’re not required to take the test,” the detective says. “It’s strictly voluntary – you understand that, right?”

“What?” Liz says. “What?”

I just stand there. Anger bubbles up in me. “I’ll take the test,” I say, “but it’s a waste of time. I don’t get it. There had to be hundreds of people who saw my kids at the fair. And Kevin called me, he called me from here. Your guy – Christiansen – he was in the car.”

Shoffler screws up his face, looks at the ceiling, as if he’s getting some kind of information from up there. Then he nods, makes up his mind about something. “Look,” he says, “the phone call? You say that was your kid – but no one else can confirm that. It could have been anyone. Even if the call did come from here.” It seems as if he’s going to say more, but he changes his mind and just shakes his head.

I know what he’s thinking though, and the word goes off in my mind like a cherry bomb: accomplice.

“It’s just like that shoe you spotted out by the fence,” Shoffler says. “You know? I’m not implying anything here, but the thing is – who spotted it?”

“What shoe?” Liz asks in a panicky voice. “There’s a shoe?”

“We found a child’s shoe at the fairgrounds,” Shoffler says. “According to your husband, it belongs to one of your boys.”

“Kevin,” I say. “One of Kevin’s Nikes.”

“You can understand why we’d like you to take a test,” Shoffler says in what I guess is meant to be a soothing voice, “because… the thing is, what we’ve got, it’s all…” He stops there, ending with a little shrug. He doesn’t say it, but I get the message. I could have put the shoe there, outside the jousting ring, then pointed it out to Shoffler. An accomplice could have made the phone call from this house to my cell phone. There’s been no ransom note, no telephone call. Shoffler himself said it: Why take two kids? It’s not like a bake sale. There’s no outside corroboration for my story. It all begins and ends with me.

“Somebody had to see us there,” I say. “I mean – it’s crazy. Thousands of people saw us.”

“Well, as for the fair visitors,” Shoffler says in a conciliatory tone, “I’m sure you’re right. For certain we got plenty of volunteers claiming to remember you.” He makes that clicking noise with his mouth. A regretful click. “But of course the thing’s been all over the tube. Most of the folks who have come forward weren’t even there during the right stretch of time. Now, I’m sure we’ll eventually find plenty of reliable witnesses who saw you and your sons and can confirm the time frame.” His hands shoot up in a what-can-I-do gesture. “But until we do, my advice is – take the test.”

“Of course I’ll take the test,” I say.

“Good,” the detective says. “I’ll schedule it.”

My parents and Jack have materialized in the hall behind the detective. “They told us to go to the kitchen,” my mother says.

“What’s this about a test?” Jack asks.

“They want Alex to take a polygraph,” Liz blurts out in a shaky voice.

“A lie detector test?” my father says to Shoffler. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Shoffler holds out his traffic cop hand. “It’s routine,” he says. “Exclusionary.”

“Like the fingerprints?” my mother puts in.

Shoffler nods.

My father squares his shoulders. “Look, Detective Shoffler,” he says, “be frank with me: Do we need a lawyer here?”

“This is all on a strictly voluntary basis,” Shoffler says. “If your son wants-”

“No,” I say, interrupting the detective. “Dad – Jesus! No lawyer – I don’t need a lawyer.”

“It’s not…” my father starts, “I don’t mean…” He shakes his head. I see that he’s holding my mother’s hand tight, their fingers intertwined, knuckles white. “It’s just, I don’t like this is all, Alex. I don’t like the way this is going.”

“I’ll set it up for the morning,” Shoffler says.

For a moment, the false accusation gets to me – to be accused of such a thing. I can write the sound bites myself, imagine the breathless but somber delivery:

“More developments in the case of the missing Callahan twins: Police found a blood-soaked T-shirt in the father’s house.”

“Police have requested that the father take a polygraph test.”

But my wounded outrage about being accused, the flare of sadness – these emotions persist for only a few seconds. They barely register against the despair that’s enveloped me since Shoffler displayed Kevin’s blood-drenched T-shirt. The one glimmer of hope came from a thought that in itself was so hideous I hate to admit to it: there was only one T-shirt, not two. Maybe two kids were too much trouble. And it was Kevin’s shoe, too. Maybe Sean…

I’m sinking.

It isn’t that consciously I’ve put much into believing that Shoffler and the authorities will track down whoever took my sons, will find Kevin and Sean and bring them home. Yet on some level I invested more in that idea than I realized. I put faith in the professionalism and energy of the authorities, in their manpower and resources, in helicopters, search grids, canine trackers, evidence technicians, and databases.

But if the request that I take a polygraph means – and what else can it mean? – they think I played some active role in my sons’ disappearance, then there’s no hope. The authorities are so far off the track that I may as well put my faith in the yellow ribbons neighbors have begun to string around the trees up and down Ordway Street.