Hunting Annabelle, page 17
“No.” My protest sounds wrong, too loud, too weak, too forced, too young.
She steps closer. “Did you kill Annabelle?”
My voice won’t work. Eyes huge, I shake my head.
“You don’t like me, do you? I’m not afraid enough. Not young enough, not helpless enough, right? Not like Elise.”
I wish her words would stop coming. I wish I could hide from her hate-filled blue eyes. I close my eyes and catch the scent of her deodorant. “It’s not like that,” I manage to whisper. The corners of my mouth pull down hard. My throat stings.
“What is it like, then, Sean?”
I cover my face with my hands. My fingers smell like sweat. I remember the knife block, my fear of using the knives. Could I hurt someone with them? Would I?
“Tell me,” she hisses. “Tell me what it was like with Elise, then.”
“I loved her,” I whisper. My voice is choked. I’m filled with longing, but this time it’s not for Annabelle. It’s for Elise, with her stupid teenage giggling and her incessant phone calls and the way she’d played with my earrings. She had always been ready to laugh, always ready to make a game out of any little thing. If we were waiting in line, she’d make me do Thumb War with her a thousand times. If we were stuck in class, she’d make some little project out of paper and drag reluctant chuckles out of me with the funny things she’d write inside them. She was always smiling, teasing, poking at me, pinching my cheeks, pressing her forehead into my chest. She was the first person to ever truly touch me.
Detective Ridgeway steps back. “We’re going to look into anyone else who’s gone missing after visiting Four Corners, any other missing girls who might have spent some time there over the last few years. Does that worry you?”
“No,” I say into my hands. I take a breath, pull myself together and remove my hands from my face. “I haven’t done anything. It doesn’t worry me.”
It actually does worry me. What if they turn up some random girl who happened to go to Four Corners on a vacation and get murdered a few months later? I’ve been going there for years. Statistically, there could absolutely have been some girl who went missing after a visit to the park. Could I get blamed for someone else’s crime?
Benton clears his throat. “What were you doing out in Lone Herman? Officer MacFarlane was very disturbed by your going out there, stalking the girls, going to Annabelle’s old high school. It was creepy. Weird.”
I’d never noticed, but the grout between the tiles is a little too dark. It makes the floor look dirty. They should have used white grout.
Benton leans a hand onto the wall next to me, trapping me. “Why’d you go there? Trying to make yourself look real concerned? Like a nice guy trying to help? Or maybe you were just getting off on seeing where she grew up, this girl you killed.”
I can’t help but stare at his mustache. It’s so bushy.
I look into his gray eyes. “I was just asking around to see if anyone might know where Annabelle could be. I’m worried about her. I didn’t...do anything to her. I don’t know anything more than I’ve already told you.”
Ridgeway’s red-orange fury slaps me on the side of my head. “I didn’t,” I snap in response. “You should be out there looking for her instead of wasting your time with my juvenile record and...and...” I clench my jaw. I need to shut the fuck up. My hangover is an annoying, low-grade throbbing on the side of my head.
Benton says, “This file is very concerning.” I’m pretty sure concerning is not a word. “We’ve opened a missing persons file.”
“Good. Finally.” After an awkward silence during which five different emotions battle for my attention, I appeal to Benton. “Look, I get that you’re suspicious of me. Fine. I can’t blame you, not if you have that.” I gesture toward the folder. “But at least look into other options, other people. You’re the professionals. At least consider that I’m telling you the truth. I understand that you have to look into me, but at least try to find out who else might have taken her. Please? Isn’t that your job? To consider all angles?” My words come out so rushed and pathetic that I can hardly bear the sound of them. My left shoulder starts tingling and prickling, and I struggle to restrain myself from rubbing it.
Ridgeway can barely even function through her fury. She wants to hit me. I stare at the floor again, ashamed and small, hating myself, hating them, full of guilt and shame and self-loathing. I’ve underestimated these detectives. I’ve been considering them hick cops because this is Texas and everything here feels garish and half-assed to me, but I’ve been wrong. Officer MacFarlane is a hick cop. Austin is the state capital; these are real, intelligent detectives, and I haven’t paid any attention to the complexities of their personalities. Officer Ridgeway is hard and tough, but she’s also full of empathy and horror for the victims of violent crime. Her eyes, so full of taut, soured sadness examine me from head to toe, and I feel like no part of me can be hidden from them, like in her desperation to save Annabelle, she will mine me for every last piece of information until I’ve given her every part of myself that could possibly be used to incriminate me. Officer Benton, too, is much more incisive than I’d given him credit for. I feel the ebb and flow that goes between them, the unspoken communication that allows them to know which of them should play which role when talking to a suspect or victim.
These are good detectives. They’re on the right side, and the right side is not my side because I am not the good guy.
“Here’s a question,” Benton says, as though he’s been mulling something over. “You were sentenced to twelve years, yet you served only three. Why?”
I look down at the tile.
“I mean, look, criminals get off all the time,” Benton continued. “I wasn’t so much wondering about the reduced sentence until I came here and got a look at your house. Top-of-the-line personal computer, nice stereo system...your mom drives an Audi?”
I shrug.
“Must’ve had some pretty good lawyers, huh?” His voice is full of loathing.
I feel young, spoiled and pathetically small, but I force myself to say, “I was sick. I got treatment.”
“Sick,” he scoffs. “You told that to the appeals court? They ate it up, I bet. California bleeding-heart judges. I’m sure Annabelle’s family will be glad to know you’re all better now when we find her body.”
One of the uniformed officers comes downstairs holding four of my sketchbooks. He calls Ridgeway over and pages through them with her.
“What are you doing with those?” I demand. “Those are private. Those aren’t evidence.”
Ridgeway glances through one. “You’re a real artist.”
I shrug.
“Who’s she?” she asks casually, her tone carrying more weight than the question warrants. I look at the sketch she’s indicating, the one the officer came to show her, and my stomach drops down to the floor.
It’s Rebecca, one hand resting on the steam wand of the espresso machine, other hand gripping a silver pitcher of milk. She’s smiling down at the milk as she steams it with practiced ease, hair pulled into a high puff of a ponytail. Hers was a youthful, perky beauty, all freckles and russet skin and golden-streaked, spring-curled hair. I went to that coffee shop every day for months, watching her, ordering cups of coffee I got too absorbed in my drawings to finish. Her aura was almost always a soft, aqua turquoise, making me think of islands and dolphins, everything pure and sunny and clean.
Ridgeway murmurs, “They say they found hundreds of drawings of this girl in your sketchbooks. Hundreds. Books full.”
I back away from the book. I can’t go far; there’s a wall behind me. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I manage.
“What’s her name?” Ridgeway demands, teeth sharpening under her angry, tightened lips.
“She stopped working there. I never saw her again. One day she just wasn’t there.”
“What is her name, Sean?”
I sigh. “Rebecca. I never found out her last name. I never even spoke with her. She just...she always had a name tag on.”
She holds the book up. “This is stalking. Do you understand that? What coffee shop was this?”
“It was called Hopped Up, just a mile or a mile and a half from Four Corners. You can check, find out about her. I swear to you, I didn’t hurt her. I never even spoke to her! She never knew I was there.”
My voice cuts off, leaving a hollow silence in its wake. I hope my words ring with truthfulness. Ridgeway looks at me like she wants to spit on me. “Those notes you found were interesting, Sean, the ones you say were given to you by the kidnapper. Do you know what kind of paper they were on?”
Taken aback by the change in subject, it takes me a minute, but then I shake my head. “No. It just looked plain white to me.”
“They’re on 50 pound matte white. It’s pretty common. You know what it’s used for?”
I shake my head again.
“Sketchbooks. Like the ones you use.”
My head reels. She has to be wrong. “This paper has to be used for other things, too,” I stammer.
She levels her stare at me and keeps her mouth pinched annoyingly shut.
I toss my hands up in exasperation. “You’re just trying to find things to use against me. You want this to be my fault, but it isn’t. This isn’t even real evidence. Why would I have given the notes to you if I had written them? It makes no sense!”
To the officer, who is still waiting for instructions, Ridgeway says, “Make sure you take pictures of every drawing in every sketchbook. And look for pages that have been torn or cut. Let me know what you find.”
He gives her a look of protest; clearly this is a task that will take him a million hours. Her expression makes him think twice about arguing and he retreats up the stairs.
I can’t watch this. I’m going to hit her. I’m going to scream. I turn around and walk to the kitchen. Benton is outside with one of the officers and some equipment, probably digging up the yard. The cop from the kitchen keeps a close eye on me.
I pick up the kitchen phone receiver and bring it shakily to my ear. I tangle the curly cord around itself by accident and have to swing the receiver in circles to untangle it. It feels like a weapon and makes me want to use it like a bludgeon. I page my mom, fingers almost unable to hit the right buttons, and set the receiver back into its cradle. I press my face into my hands for a moment, afraid I’m going to cry. They’re reading my journals right now. They’re reading all the ones from high school. They’re reading all the ones from when I was first released from the asylum. They’re reading all the ones from Four Corners, and they’re reading all the stuff I’ve written about Annabelle this week, all the pictures I’ve drawn of her from memory, all the words I’ve written about loving her and about wishing we could be together, about her sweet copper innocence and her pulsing, darkly beautiful melancholy. They’re reading about the auras, my confusion about my diagnosis, my private pain. Did I write anything about Alfonso? God, I hope not. All those private images and words are right now being defiled by some fat-bellied pig of a cop and I can’t do anything about it. Sobs come out along with tears and I’m shocked by the intensity of the emotion. Usually I feel so dim and away from everything, remote and apathetic. Now the feelings are up close and personal. They’re right here, and they’re crushing me—Annabelle’s absence, my dream, my guilt, the knowledge that if it weren’t for me and my past, the cops would actually be looking for Annabelle right now instead of wasting their time reading all of my diaries. It’s my fault, the whole thing, and I hate myself so much for it in this moment that images of stabbing myself with one of the kitchen knives overwhelm me and I have to sit on my hands to reassure myself that I won’t actually do it.
There’s no way around it. I’m completely and totally screwed. I am going to jail for this unless I figure out who actually kidnapped Annabelle, and it’s not looking very good on that front.
My mom is going to be so pleased. She’s finally getting her wish.
Chapter Seventeen
The cops leave the house trashed. My mom never returned my page. By four o’clock, the house is empty and I’m left alone in my room until I can’t stay here any longer. I shower, change and set off on my bike with no destination in mind.
As I ride, I wonder if I’m being followed by the police. Is that something they would do? I look behind me a bunch of times but don’t see any cars that seem to be tailing me, and at last I decide that I really don’t care. Let them follow me.
My bike takes me on a familiar route, and before I know it, I’m pulling into the Four Corners parking lot. It’s a crowded day, a pretty, sunny afternoon, and I get in line with the tourists. I show the girl at the turnstile my season pass and then I’m inside.
My heart kind of soars. It’s so familiar here, so comforting. I stand in the entry square for a few minutes, soaking up the crowds of happy tourists and the big empty Texas sky. The smells of concession food and cigarette smoke blend into each other; nearby, a family poses for a picture against a fountain and one of the kids throws a nickel into the water with her eyes squinted shut, wishing hard.
I follow my familiar route to the tree house and climb up into the branches of the big oak. I hide up there and look down at the creek where I’d seen Annabelle’s copper hair as she searched for a spot to dump her grandma’s ashes. It seems so long ago. I can almost pretend the last two weeks have been nothing but a bad dream.
Staring down at that spot, I can’t help but think that, if I had left Annabelle alone like I should have, she’d still be alive right now. I can’t help but think that I somehow brought this on her. I can never allow myself to get close to anyone again. I have to leave people alone.
I climb down the tree and wander through the paths, running my eyes over the tourists, trying to ignore the rainbow of auras all around me. Around six o’clock, I duck into a little restaurant near the High Tower that serves good hamburgers. I order one at the counter and sit at a table near the register to wait. I kill some time lighting matches from the custom restaurant matchbook and dropping them one by one into the ashtray.
The cashier is a pretty blonde, maybe nineteen years old. Behind her, a man in his midtwenties with an already receding hairline and bad acne is packing up the food that gets handed to him by the cooks on the line. He stuffs burgers, fries and ketchup into bags and hurries to the counter to call out a number, then returns to his place on the line. When he trots by the cashier, he brushes against her ass as though by accident. It’s completely intentional. She has no clue; she just steps forward, out of the way, and smiles more broadly at the woman whose order she’s taking.
Creep, I think. His name tag tells me that he is Greg and that he is the assistant manager. He resumes his duties, staring at her ass with a little smirk on his face.
Something about the incident eats at me. I examine the feeling and wonder why.
The match I’m holding burns my fingers and I snap them apart, dropping it into the pile of ashes and cigarette butts.
“Order 43,” the cashier calls, and I take my bag from her, searching her face for answers and finding none.
I wander through the park with my burger, forcing myself to chew without tasting, hating the feel of the food in my mouth, turning everything over in my mind. I end up at the Black House with a stomach full of something darker than butterflies. I enter slowly and approach the wax sculpture of Deadly Annie, who graces the passersby with her motionless, benevolent smile. I study her face, searching for Annabelle in it, and read the statistics on her plaque even though I have the whole thing memorized. I remember Annabelle’s face when I’d recounted Deadly Annie’s body count. It must have horrified her, tortured her. I understand now with complete clarity that killing a person is not a final act. It continues to reverberate and echo back in unforeseen ways. All the people around the victim are affected, as are all the people around the killer. It’s like dropping two rocks in a lake; all the ripples around the rocks spread out and cross paths with each other, messing each other up, muddying the clean surface of the water, and they send ripples out all the way to the edges. Annabelle is one of those ripples. Her killer is another.
Her killer. There. I’ve thought the words.
She is dead and someone killed her. That’s the truth, and I have to accept it.
There’s one small moment of peace where I know the truth and I believe the truth, and then the truth is hot and sickening, and I push it away and go back to thinking about the ripples.
Out there somewhere is a person who was affected by one of Deadly Annie’s killings. That person thought killing Annabelle was a fair form of revenge. Little did they know they were just dropping two more rocks in the lake.
Annabelle never told anyone in Austin that she was related to Deadly Annie. Whoever that person is, he or she must have known Annabelle in Lone Herman. So I’m looking for someone athletic enough to drag Annabelle away screaming, motivated by a personal connection to one of Deadly Annie’s victims and connected to Annabelle through Lone Herman.
Greg pops into my head, leering at the cashier’s ass. The restaurant manager. Something about the restaurant manager. For a moment I don’t know why this is resonating with me, and then suddenly I do know. The thought hits me in the stomach so brutally that I gasp for breath. My burger falls to the ground. The air spins around me.
The restaurant manager.
Where’s a phone? I need a goddamned phone.
I run out of the Black House and straight for the exit. I push through pedestrians and burst through the gate onto the pavilion, which is crowded with tourists and people selling toys and refreshments out of pushcarts. I scan the pavilion. There’s a gate, there’s another gate, there’s a million fucking tourists... There! There’s a bank of pay phones.
