Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Read online

  “A cab to where?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t think she knows.”

  “Sophie?”

  “She’s in there with ’em.”

  I went to the door, knocked. Mary came across, peeked through the glass window, opened the door.

  “Hey, Jack,” she said. “You have a little girl who’s been missing you.”

  She moved aside and I stepped in. Mandi was sitting at the table, her face purple and yellow. Sophie was sitting on a stool by the stove, eyes puffy.

  “Hey, honey,” I said. “What’s the matter? You been crying?”

  She pursed her lips, started to cry, dry sobs like all the tears had drained out. “Mandi. She—she wants to go away.”

  “Oh, but honey,” Mandi said. “I’ll come back and see you. Really, I will.”

  “You can’t ’cause you can’t walk.”

  “I’ll come back when I get better.”

  “You’ll forget,” Sophie said.

  I knelt by Sophie, put the box on the floor. “You want to see something?”

  She leaned toward the box. I opened the top flap and the cat lifted its head, then leapt out, darted out of the kitchen and into the house.

  “A kitty,” Sophie said, and started after it.

  “Her name is Lulu,” Mandi said, and Sophie began calling. “Lulu. Come here, Lulu.”

  They were gone. Mary started after them, saying, “Honey, don’t pick her up yet. She’s nervous.”

  I stood, looked at Mandi, her bare leg in gym shorts, stretched out in front of her. “So what is it?” I said.

  “I can’t be here, Jack,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I’ve got friends.”

  “Where?”

  “Portland. They’ll take care of me for a while.”

  “Okay. I’ll drive you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “A cab to Portland will cost you a fortune. I’ll run you down there, make sure you’re all set.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Have you talked to them yet? You know they can put you up?”

  “No, but they’ll be there,” Mandi said.

  “But what if they’re—”

  “I gotta go,” she blurted. “I just gotta go.”

  She took a breath. “I can’t be here, okay? You guys, you’ve been great. Mary and Clair are so nice, and Sophie she’s just adorable. But I can’t be here.”

  Drugs, I thought. She was an addict. She was going into withdrawal, the painkillers wearing off.

  “Clair told me about the guy in the woods.”

  “Roxanne, she’s having some trouble with a family,” I said. “The police are—”

  “How do you know he wasn’t after me?”

  “Roger?” I said. “Beat you up and now he’s coming back to kidnap you? Doesn’t make sense. The two things are very different. A drunken rage and this other thing.”

  “It’s control,” Mandi said.

  “What’d Roger look like?”

  “Your size, blondish brown hair, cut short with these little flipped-up bangs in the front, kind of like a little kid.”

  “This guy was big and heavy with a thick black beard.”

  “Could be a friend of his—”

  “Some control freak gets his friend to control you, too? And what’s with this control stuff?”

  For a long time, Mandi didn’t answer. Leaned forward over her legs, ran her hands through her hair. From deep in the house we could hear Sophie calling the cat.

  “I saw him five times,” Mandi said, looking up at me.

  “Over what period of time?”

  “A month.”

  “And?”

  “And he was like the guys I was telling you about. It was like each time he was asking me on a date. He’d say what we were going to do. The first time we went to this place across the bridge, you drive down, you can sit on the rocks. We take his truck and—”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “I don’t know. A black truck. A big one, bigger than yours.”

  “Ford? Chevy?”

  “Um, I don’t know. What’s an F-50?”

  “F-150?”

  “Right. It said that on the side.”

  “That’s a Ford. Go ahead with the story, then.”

  “Okay. Well, he had a bottle of wine and we drank the wine out of paper cups and looked out at the water, the boats and everything.”

  “And he paid you?”

  “Yeah. Then he asked me if he could call me again. I said, ‘Sure.’”

  “So he did?”

  “Yeah. The next time we went out to dinner. This place on the water in Lincolnville. He had on dress pants and a shirt with a collar.”

  “What did he talk about?”

  “He told me he liked the Baltimore Orioles. I got him talking about that for a while. You could tell he was really into it, knew all the names and stuff.”

  “Were you into it?”

  “No.”

  “But he didn’t get that?”

  “He was kinda clueless, in a way. Like a guy who never had a girlfriend before. Wasn’t sure how to go about it.”

  “So did he—”

  “Pay me? Yeah. Two hundred bucks each time. Cash in an envelope with a card with roses on it. Like it was my birthday.”

  I didn’t ask the obvious question.

  “No, he didn’t sleep with me or anything. The second time he kissed me goodbye. Third date, we went bowling in Rockland. He kissed me more after that. I mean, it was like high school or something. With a shy guy.”

  We heard a distant shriek of delight from Sophie.

  “Fourth time, he brought a picnic. Crackers and cheese and fruit and wine. Even had it in a little basket.”

  “What’d you talk about then?” I said.

  “Oh, more baseball. Boats. He’s been fixing up his boat. He told me about his parents, how they had a real lot of money, how they liked his sister more because she was really smart in school. He was the dumb one.”

  “What he did for work?”

  “I don’t think he did. He never talked about that.”

  “Was he from Galway?”

  “Seemed to know his way around, but I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask where he lived?”

  She frowned, making her purpled-eyes squint.

  “You gotta understand. First of all, I don’t ask. They won’t tell, not the truth. And Roger, it was different right from the start. He was acting like we’d met at work or someplace and he’d asked me out. I was, I don’t know, going along. He could be kind of annoying, explaining simple things like I’m dumb. But he wasn’t ugly or smelly and he brought me stuff and, I don’t know, it was kinda fun to be on a sort of date. But still, it was—”

  “Business,” I said.

  “Yeah. If he wanted to have this fantasy that we were dating, I mean, so what? The money was good. Get him talking about sports and boats and pretend to be interested. Beats—”

  I didn’t want to know what it beats. “And then what?”

  “The last time, we went to dinner, this fancy place down in Camden. He called and asked me to get dressed up, so I wore a dress, my new shoes. Dinner cost like three hundred bucks, eighty something dollars just for the wine. One little bottle.”

  She shook her head. “It was like I was in a movie or something. I just had to remember my lines and he played his part fine. This kind of doofy guy with money.”

  Mandi sighed. Ran her hands up and down her thighs, over the bruises. She sighed again. “So after dinner, we came back to town, went for a walk down on the harbor. Looked at the lights, then came back to the apartment. He put the card on the table, you know, the card with the money. And we sat on the couch and things were, I don’t know, progressing. More than before. And I figure, well, he’s gonna want to do more than kiss goodnight this time.

&nb
sp; “So I got up, went and got my nice dress off, put on this nightgown, kinda slinky. I kept the shoes on, the heels. Some guys like that, you know? But then he—”

  She paused. Turned to listen for Sophie and Mary. Their voices were distant and Mandi continued. “But then he didn’t like jump my bones. He just sat on the edge of the bed and he held my hand and he—”

  She swallowed, like the words couldn’t come.

  “He asked you to marry him,” I said.

  Mandi nodded, eyes tearing. “It was awful,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t marry him. And he didn’t know that. But how could he not know that?”

  “He was serious?”

  “He had a ring,” Mandi said. “A diamond. In a little box. Velvet on it. And he opened it and he started this speech, like he’d been rehearsing. How he knows we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but when he met me, right away it was like he’d known me his whole life.”

  She swallowed.

  “He said we were soul mates.”

  “Yikes,” I said.

  Mandi closed her eyes. “So he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and I’m, like, totally shocked. And he’s going on about how wonderful I am and beautiful and I felt like saying, ‘Stop. I am not this person you think I am.’ ”

  I waited.

  “And then he, like, slowly starts to get it. I could see it in his eyes. It was horrible. I mean, I didn’t even have to say anything. He could just see it. He could see that I didn’t care for him, really. It was just—”

  “Business,” I said.

  “Right. And the guy has just said he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I’ll never forget that look. It was like he’d just seen somebody die or something. He looked, I don’t know, crushed. Slowly crushed, like one of those big snakes in the jungle was squeezing him.”

  “And then angry?”

  “Like a light switch. Like a little kid having a temper tantrum. He flung me back and just started swinging. He was making this screaming sound, no words, just like this bellowing, you know?”

  “And he knocked you off the bed?”

  “And then he jumped down and landed on my leg and kicked me and punched me and I thought he was gonna kill me. I thought, well, isn’t this a weird way to go? Killed by the only guy who ever asked you to marry him. I remember thinking, how bizarre.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I passed out. And then you were there.”

  We didn’t speak. Mandi looked down at her leg. I stared at the wall behind her, the bulletin board with a John Deere pin, pictures of Clair and Mary’s grandchildren, smiling towheads in their green yard in North Carolina.

  “Tell me something, Mandi,” I said, dropping my gaze to her eyes.

  She looked up.

  “Why is it you don’t think you’re good enough?”

  She continued to stare at me, but I saw a hardness form, like she was made of glue and it had just set.

  I waited. I waited some more. “You’re nice,” I said. “And you’re attractive. Why wouldn’t some guy want to marry you? Take you on dates? Why did you say—what was it? ‘I’m not the person you think I am.’”

  I watched her. Her eyes narrowed. Her jaw clenched. Her attention turned away from me, like she had moved deep inside herself. “Jack, you don’t know me,” she said.

  “I feel like I know you some,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I’m a stranger. I don’t belong here, in this house with your pretty little girl and these nice people. Mary brought me breakfast in my room. She washed my clothes. Clair rigged up a chair in the shower. Mary asked me if I was a vegetarian ’cause if I was, they wouldn’t have pork chops.”

  “And Sophie thinks you’re just great,” I said.

  “I’m not, Jack,” Mandi said. “Look at me.”

  “I am looking.”

  “You know what I do.”

  “I don’t know why,” I said. “You could do anything.”

  She looked past me, past the house, past the woods, and away to some distant place. She smiled, shook her head at some irony only she was aware of. “It’s a long story,” she said.

  “I have time.”

  “No,” Mandi said. “This story, it lasts a lifetime.” She smiled. And then she chuckled, an odd sound that wavered, a half cry.

  “Roxanne knows people you could talk to,” I said.

  “Oh, God, I’ve talked. But you know what? The talk goes in circles and always ends up in the same place. Right back where you started.”

  She looked at me. “You know what,” she said. “It’s people like you. Like all of you.”

  “People like us what?”

  “That I have to get away from.”

  “Why?”

  “Call me a cab.”

  “There are no cabs out here.”

  “Sure there are. There are cabs in Galway.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “I don’t know,” Mandi said. “Portland. Like I told you, I have friends.”

  “Then I’ll drive you.”

  “No.”

  “Because there aren’t any friends,” I said.

  “Sure there are. I used to live there.”

  “Then let’s go. You can call them on the way, tell them you’re coming.”

  “No,” Mandi said, agitated now, picking at the cast on her wrist.

  “I’m not going to let some cabbie dump you on a street corner. You can’t even walk.”

  She started to cry. “Why, Jack?” she said. “Why not?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be right,” I said.

  “Right?” she said, sobbing. “Nothing’s right. Nothing will ever be right.”

  She rocked forward and back. I put my hand on her shoulder and patted and she felt small, more like Sophie than Roxanne, a sad, sad, child. “I’m sorry, Jack,” Mandi said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?” I said.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and she rocked and I patted, and the cat dashed into the room, skidding to a halt. There was a flurry of footsteps and Sophie followed, stopped in her tracks, and looked at Mandi, tears streaking her cheeks, blackened eyes even more swollen.

  “What’s the matter?” Sophie said.

  “Oh, nothing, honey,” Mandi said.

  “When I’m crying, Mommy and Daddy hug me,” Sophie said.

  Mandi smiled.

  “Where are your mommy and daddy?” Sophie said.

  I looked to Mandi and waited, but I knew she wouldn’t answer.

  Chapter 17

  Mandi stayed. I took Sophie home and she asked when she could go back to see the cat. I said maybe after her nap and she got her blanket and a stack of books and I read to her on her bed, a story about a dog, a cat, and a goat who were best friends.

  “Mandi and Lulu are my best friends,” Sophie said, and two pages later she fell asleep.

  I went downstairs to the study, did some work. There was a story in the Galway paper about a young woman in Rockland arrested for dealing crack. She was nineteen. Her four-month-old baby was in the back of the car when the police picked her up. In her mugshot, she was pretty and blonde. The story said she’d been a high school cheerleader.

  I called Myra at the Times, sold her on the story of the infiltration of crack and heroin to midcoast Maine. Six hundred words for six hundred bucks. I called the police chief in Rockland, got his dire assessment of the situation. Called a county detective who specialized in drug investigations. He said the drugs were coming through from Canada, so I called the INS office in Boston, got a quote from an agent there who said they were seizing more heroin on the northern border than ever. And they knew the vast majority of it got through.

  An hour on the phone. An hour to write it. The story still seemed flat, so I got the phone book out, called six people in Rockland with the same last name as the young woman: Beech. In fifteen minutes, I had her mother on the phone. She cr
ied.

  Sometimes you get lucky.

  She said drugs had taken her daughter away, but now she hoped she’d get her back. “Police arresting her, that might’ve saved her life,” the mother said.

  That was how I ended it. I e-mailed the story as Sophie stirred upstairs, a book falling out of the bed onto the floor. As I got up from my desk to get her, I wondered what had taken Mandi away, and if there was anyone out there who wanted her back.

  The Wilton kids were causing trouble. It wasn’t that they meant to, but their talk about Satan and the false Christian god was giving the foster parents the willies.

  “The foster said she’s been having nightmares, feels like she should lock the bedroom door at night,” Roxanne said. “She’s actually afraid of them.”

  “How old?”

  “Eight and four. Jeremy and Luc. With a ‘c.’”

  “Short for Lucifer?” I said.

  “I don’t ask,” Roxanne said. “It’s hard. We don’t want to discriminate against them because of their religion.”

  “They complain, you can just tell them to go to the devil.”

  Roxanne smiled, but barely.

  We were sitting on the deck having a drink. It was a little after five and Roxanne had changed into shorts and a tank top, her bare feet were up on the table. Sophie was playing with a Fisher-Price barn that Clair and Mary had gotten down from their attic. The toy cows were grazing on the lawn.

  “Are they happy?” I said, holding my beer glass.

  “The boys? Seem pretty well adjusted. I mean, they eat like there’s no tomorrow. The doctor said they were really malnourished.”

  “Making up for lost time.”

  “Right. But I’ve got to find somebody else to take them, ASAP.”

  “No Satanists on your list?”

  “Just deluded Christians and Jews,” Roxanne said.

  “Just find a nice agnostic.”

  “I suppose.”

  She sipped her wine. I took a swallow of Ballantine. Bright goldfinches swarmed around the bird feeder. Sophie chattered, made a mooing sound, the cows talking to each other.

  Roxanne, lost in thought, didn’t notice.

  “I read as much as I could about it online,” she said. “It says there are tens of thousands of people who believe this, that Satanism is the first religion, the real one. The rest are all fakes, invented in this sort of power grab.”