Читать книгу Safe Keeping - Barbara Sissel Taylor - Страница 9

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THE I-45 INTERSTATE that bisected the heart of town wasn’t really an interstate at all given that the entire length of it, some 294 miles, fell inside Texas borders. It was anchored on its northern end by the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and on its southern end by the bay-front city of Galveston. The drive down to the beach wasn’t bad. If you started out early enough, it made a nice day trip. As children, Lissa and Tucker went with their parents, and when Lissa was older, high school age, she went with her girlfriends.

The last time was twenty years ago, the weekend after her high school graduation. She wouldn’t ever forget it because it was the same weekend she realized Evan wasn’t just some guy who worked for her dad. That weekend she went with a girlfriend to a party in a bay-front condo where cocaine was heaped in a bowl on the coffee table. It scared the shit out of her, but her girlfriend was all over it.

Lissa tried it, too, one tiny line—how could she not?—and then she freaked out. She was certain she was going to die of an overdose or become an addict. She felt wild, as if she had somehow crawled outside her own skin. In her mania, she went out to the beach to dance, alone, putting herself in even worse jeopardy as it turned out. She was fortunate, later, to escape behind the locked door of the bathroom, and when she spied the telephone hanging on the wall near the toilet, she did the only thing that seemed reasonable; she dialed her dad’s office number. Thankfully—it still gave her chills to remember her luck—it was Evan who answered, Evan who came to retrieve her. Who knew what her dad might have done? He might have brought a gun or the police or both. He might have killed her, given his temper. He didn’t often lose it, but he could, if the right trigger was pulled.

Instead, it was Evan who walked her up and down the beach along the water’s edge, while she jabbered like a madwoman until the stuff left her system. He took her to an all-night café and bought her orange juice and a doughnut, too, and suggested she was probably not good drug-addict material, and then he drove her home. At some point before that, he called Tucker and alerted him. Lissa remembered now that it was Tucker who covered for her with their parents, who waited up for her.

It was usually the other way around, Lissa taking care of Tucker.

She sat at the I-45 intersection, waiting for the light to change, thinking of him waiting at her house to tell her God knew what. It wouldn’t be anything good, not if the police were looking for him. When she had called Evan back and told him she was headed home, that Tucker was there, he said he would come, but as much as she might long for his support, she told him no. It was bad enough that she was missing work. She thought of her foolish behavior all those years ago, how she could so easily have fallen into harm’s way and, instead, had fallen— She paused. Not in love with Evan, she thought, not at first. Something better, richer. It had been more like falling into deep and abiding friendship and gratitude. Love, the full-out passionate, can’t get enough of you lust—Lissa’s face warmed—that came later; it had been a slow, sweet progression, like the unfolding of a flower’s petals into a fuller bloom. That long-ago day in Galveston, she hadn’t had a clue about what she and Evan would come to mean to each other.

She’d still been woozy when he handed her carefully through the door to her little brother. Tucker had been all of fourteen, or fifteen, maybe. Lissa could see him in her mind’s eye, hustling her up the stairs, leading her quietly by their folks’ bedroom. He’d been upset with her, that she’d been drunk and strung out with people—men—she didn’t know. Any one of whom might have been a psycho, he said. He brought her an aspirin and a glass of water, and because he wanted to make a point about the danger she’d put herself in, he gave her a folder full of newspaper clippings he’d been collecting about the girls from communities near Galveston who had been found dead around there. So many, dating as far back as the 1970s, that there were rumors of multiple serial killers working in the area.

Lissa knew of Tucker’s interest in crime. During his short college career, he talked about studying criminology, but she didn’t know much about the I-45 serial killings, or his fascination with them before that summer night when he took out all the contents of his folder and spread them around her on the bed and on the floor at her feet. There were photos of the victims and of the crime scene locations, most of which were strung along a battered stretch of I-45 the locals called the Gulf Freeway, an approximately fifty-mile stretch of the interstate that connected the unraveling southern edge of Houston to the Galveston Causeway. The land the highway bisected was riddled with tree-clotted, snake-infested bayous and the skeletal remains of oilfield equipment that sat forgotten and rusting in the mean shadows of smog-choked refineries. There were roads, too, old service roads made of chipped asphalt covered over with hard-packed dirt. They crisscrossed the terrain, and when the night wind was right, the smoke from the nearby refineries drifted down their rutted tracks like ghosts.

It was a murderer’s paradise, the perfect dumping ground, one that over the years became known collectively as the killing fields. And the four-lane stretch of interstate that roped the crime scenes together, the Gulf Freeway, was referred to in other less flattering terms as the Highway to Hell, or the Road to Perdition, or the Killing Corridor.

Lissa remembered being spooked by Tucker’s stories that night. She remembered thinking that while his interest did seem a bit obsessive and a little unusual for a kid his age, it hadn’t struck her as weird. Not given his worry about her, that in her inebriated state she might have fallen prey to some monster killer. He told her he’d been reading up on the FBI, everything about criminal profiling he could find. John Douglas was his hero, he said, and when Lissa shrugged in ignorance, Tucker said, “Are you kidding? He’s the guy who profiled the Green River Killer. That’s how the FBI got him.”

Tucker dreamed of being like John Douglas, of doing what Douglas did. Lissa thought he could have, too; he’d been one of the smart kids, at least through elementary school. But he’d also been labeled emotional, high-strung, ADD—whatever name the teacher du jour chose to assign to him, as if the label alone would be adequate to explain his behavior. Her parents sought help for him. Tucker was tested and counseled, but no one could come up with a diagnosis that was definitive. It was frustrating, especially for her folks, but for Tucker, too.

He was a mystery even to himself.

Lissa pulled into her driveway now and parked behind the dented, yellow VW, eyeing it as she passed by, wondering about the girl it belonged to. Not a nice girl. Nice girls weren’t in the habit of picking up stray guys from the side of the road in daylight, much less at night. Lissa was judging—she knew she was—but Tucker had a reputation for attracting the wrong sort of women, the kind who would lean on him and look up to him. He liked helping them; he liked it when they took his advice.

She found him in the kitchen sitting at the table. “Hey,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket.

“Hey yourself.” He found her gaze but let it go after only a moment.

“Evan says you were in Austin? You couldn’t call?”

“Can you spare me the lecture, Liss? I already know I’m a fuckup, okay?”

She hung her jacket on the back of a chair, not saying anything, feeling her jaw tighten. Be something else, then, she wanted to say. Please...

“Look, I know you’re pissed because I missed the meeting with Pederson, but I went by the office and gave Evan the plans, so it’ll be fine now.”

“God, Tucker, you’re such an idiot! We were already behind schedule out there. We’re losing money hand over fist. Dad got hold of the books—he’s about to have a coronary.”

“What’s that got to do with me? It’s not like I work there anymore.”

Lissa closed her eyes and took a breath. The work wasn’t the issue. None of this—the schedule, Dad having the ledger, the fact that Tucker had been fired again—was important. But it was as if in some part of her mind she entertained a fantasy that if she concentrated on something else, she could hold off the calamity she could sense was shaping itself just beyond the periphery of her vision.

She watched Tucker’s feet dance under the table. He looked rough, as if he hadn’t slept or had a decent meal in any one of the twelve days he’d been gone. Mud rimmed the sole of one tennis shoe, the hem of one leg of his jeans. She noticed a cut beneath his right eye, a tiny, upside-down crescent moon inked in blood.

She leaned against the counter. “What were you doing in Austin?”

“Helping out a friend.”

“What friend?”

“You don’t know him. Guy’s got a band—he’s looking for a bass guitarist. I might go on the road with them.”

Lissa kept Tucker’s gaze, and he hung in with her, not letting hers go this time, and she was somehow relieved. Liars couldn’t look you in the eye. She said, “A man with a band, huh? I figured it would be one of your stray-dog friends.”

“Not this time.”

Lissa went to the pantry. “Do you want something to eat?”

“Nah. Thanks. I stopped at Mickey D’s on the way here. I’d take a cup of coffee, though, if it’s no trouble.”

“Since when do you drink coffee?”

“Since it got colder than hell outside.” The grin he shot her was surface, a token meant to placate her. It didn’t.

“You need to call Mom and Dad, Tuck.”

“I’ll call Mom, but I’ve got nothing to say to the old man.”

Lissa could have asked him right then why the police were looking for him, but she didn’t. Instead, she rinsed out the carafe while he told her about his Tahoe, that it had died coming back into town and that he’d gotten lucky when a girl pulled off the road to help him.

“Did you know her?” Lissa asked.

“I do now,” Tucker answered, cocking an eyebrow. “I spent the night at her place.”

“You’re hopeless, you know that?”

“Yeah, but you still love me, right?” His smile now was pure Tucker, full of mischief and his affection for her. Full of so many small teasing moments they’d shared just like this one. Full of all that connected them—family secrets, sibling histories, the ties that bind.

Lissa would tell people they were close, and in her next breath she would say they had nothing in common. Either way it was true. She’d taught him to read; she’d taught him to tie his shoes and how to color inside the lines. She’d read aloud to him and sung songs with him. “Itsy Bitsy Spider” was his favorite. He’d loved playing the finger game that went with it. At one time he’d even slept with a big, stuffed spider. It had been purple, and he’d named it Itsy. She wondered what had become of it. They’d played endless rounds of Clue and Monopoly on rainy days and shared a love of Bon Jovi and the first Rocky movie. Sometimes she understood Tucker completely; other times he was an enigma, a puzzle to which she was missing a vital piece.

She turned off the tap. “What happened to your face?”

He touched his cheek. “This? Cut myself shaving.” His feet danced.

She looked out the kitchen window. The coffeemaker sighed. She said, “I hate what’s happening, Tuck.”

“It’s not your fault Pop’s an asshole.”

He thought she was referring to the fight he’d had with their father, the latest blowout, and she was, but that was only part of it. The cup and saucer she handed him rattled in his big, work-roughened hands. He had strong, narrow wrists and long, tapered fingers that could measure an octave on the piano. Their mother had taught him to play, and he’d been a willing student until he picked up a friend’s guitar one day in high school. He’d played in a couple of bands, and Lissa thought he was good, but she wasn’t an expert. She only knew what she liked, and anyway, she kind of agreed with her dad. It wouldn’t be reliable, earning a living that way.

Dad had wanted Tucker to play baseball, as if that would be a more stable occupation.

“The old man told me not to come back.” Tucker blew over the top of his coffee cup. “So now, in addition to being jobless, I’m homeless.”

“He didn’t mean it. You know how he is. He’s cooled off now. Trust me.”

“I think I’m going to move in with Morgan, anyway.”

“Who’s Morgan?” Lissa sat across from him and stirred the sugar substitute from two blue packets into her cup.

“The girl I met last night. Her dad owns a car dealership. She thinks he’ll hire me.”

“What about the band? I thought going on the road with them was the plan.”

“Whichever works out, I guess.”

Where were you really? Lissa couldn’t bring herself to ask. She was filled with foreboding, heavy with it. She cleared her throat.

“What?” Tucker gulped his coffee.

Too fast, she thought, because he grimaced as if he’d burned his mouth. When he asked for a Coke, she brought it to him, along with the Houston Chronicle. She unfolded it.

He popped the top on his soft drink. “What’s this?”

“Do you know her?” Lissa sat down.

“This girl?” Tucker studied the picture. Nothing altered in his expression or in his voice. Lissa started to breathe, and then he said, “It’s Jessica Sweet. Holy shit!” He brought his glance to Lissa’s. “She’s dead?”

“You knew her.” Lissa’s heart throbbed in her ears.

“Yeah. Miranda introduced us. They were friends.”

“Oh, Tucker. She was a dancer, too? Did they work at the same club?”

“Yeah. So what? After Miranda was killed, we hung out together, but really, I hardly knew her. Jessica was Senator Sweet’s daughter. You remember him, U.S. senator, back in the day? She was kind of wild, got into trouble with drugs and stuff. I heard she cost her old man his last campaign—”

“Tucker! She’s dead!”

“Yeah, that’s what it says here. I can’t believe it.”

“She and Miranda were friends. They worked at the same club. You knew her. The police are looking for you. It’s happening all over again....”

“No, Liss. There’s no history between us, no big soap-opera drama. In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t find her body.”

Lissa didn’t answer.

“Come on, you know I had nothing to do with this, right? I mean you’re not stressing because you think I’m, like, guilty, are you? I didn’t even know the chick was missing until this morning when I saw the news.”

“A second ago, you said you couldn’t believe it, as if you hadn’t heard—”

“I should have known!” He tossed up his hands. “I should have guessed what you’d think. I bet Pop’s all over it, too. I’m a killer, right? The family lunatic, the psycho. That’s why Pop doesn’t want me home.” He stood up fast enough to rock the chair, grabbing his jacket, shoving his arms into the sleeves.

“Come on, Tucker. You have to admit it’s weird. Twice? In two years? Jessica was found in almost the exact location where Miranda was. You knew both of them. You must see how it looks.”

“Yeah. I see how it looks. I just never expected you would believe in how it looks. I thought you would believe in me.”

“I do, of course I do!” Lissa picked up a towel, wound her hands in it. “It’s just—”

“I’m only going to say this one time, okay? I didn’t kill Jessica. I didn’t kill Miranda. I’ve never killed anybody.” His gaze was hard on hers.

She tented her hands over her mouth, said his name, fighting tears, fighting for breath.

“I’ve got to go.” He shoved the chair under the table. “Thanks for the Coke.”

“No, wait. Where will you go? The police—”

“Fuck ’em,” he said, and then he was gone, slamming the back door behind him.