The River Killings Page 4

  It was still early; Molly would sleep for a while. So, trying not to think, I lay beside Nick, huddling against him. I kept still, listening to him breathe, watching the rise and fall of his chest. For a few minutes, I pretended, as I suspect he did, to be asleep. Then he rolled over, burying his face in my neck, and whispered muffled words.

  His whisper tickled. “What?” I hugged him with a reflexive giggle.

  “No joke,” he said. “I mean it.”

  “You mean what?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He kissed my throat, then looked deep into my eyes. “Look, the timing is good, with Molly getting older. And, hell.” He looked away, into the air. “You get to a point where you have to decide. Do you want to storm ahead or just drift? Grab on to life or let it slip past you?”

  Nick sounded depressed. I didn’t know what to say; I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. And I wasn’t in the most cheerful of moods, either.

  “We love each other,” he went on. “We’re good together. So how about it?”

  How about what? I waited, wondering, heart fluttering as it hit me—Nick must be asking me to marry him. I smiled, tears welling up in my eyes, about to give my answer.

  Nick’s pale eyes gazed into mine. “C’mon, Zoe,” he whispered, enfolding me in his arms. “Let’s make a baby.”

  EIGHT

  OF COURSE, I DIDN’T TAKE HIM LITERALLY. ACTUALLY, I WAS A little disappointed, having anticipated a marriage proposal. I thought “Let’s make a baby” was just a sweet way of asking me to make love. But that morning, physically exhausted and emotionally drained, we found respite not in sleep but in each other. Nick held me more gently than ever before, and our bodies melted together with almost painful tenderness. Each kiss lingered, each touch connected. Somehow, we crossed the barriers of our skins, merging into parts of the same creature. I joined Nick, following his lead, not caring where he’d take me or how long we’d remain.

  The next thing I knew, the phone was ringing. And Molly was tugging at my arm.

  “Mom—I don’t want to go—pleeeeze—”

  I blinked, orienting myself. I’d slept heavily, dreamlessly. I had no idea what time it was. What day it was. What month or season. Go where? What was she talking about?

  “You said maybe I might not have to. You said we’d talk about it today.”

  Oh. I began to remember. One by one, images floated through my mind. Black water. Dead women. Lights and sirens. And Molly complaining that she didn’t want to go to school. She was continuing the conversation of the night before as if seconds, not hours, had passed.

  “Let me get up,” I sat, my head protesting vehemently, and glanced at the clock. Ten after eight. I’d slept for maybe forty-five minutes. My brain began rattling back to life. Oh dear. The school bus would be here in minutes. “Please, Mom,” she whined.

  “Stop whining, Molls. We’ve got to hustle.” Memories stirred. I looked around, coming back to life. “Where’s Nick? Did he get the phone?”

  Nick had a small condo in Center City and a home in Chester County, but he often stayed with us, getting up before Molly and going downstairs so she wouldn’t see us sharing a bed. The situation was neither honest nor ideal, but it had evolved wordlessly, and Molly accepted Nick’s frequent presence naturally, without question.

  “But Mom—” More whining.

  Wait, I told myself. Listen to her; maybe she has good reasons for not wanting to go. I’d researched kindergartens carefully before selecting one; hers was rated one of the best in the Philadelphia area. But maybe something was really wrong there. Maybe there were bullies—or maybe the teacher was a child abuser.

  “Molly, tell me. What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to go?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “It’s everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s stupid. We don’t do anything.” “That’s it? It’s just boring?”

  She cocked her head, realizing she had to come up with more. “And Mrs. Rutledge bosses you. She makes you stay in your seat.”

  I put my hand on her head, tossled her curls. “Well, it doesn’t sound so bad. There’re just a few days left.” “But Mom—”

  “Molls, it’s too late to skip today.” I was on my feet, jumping into action mode. “The bus is already on the way. It’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Are you ready?”

  No. She wasn’t. Molly was still in her pajamas. “But you said . . .” she was whining.

  “I said we’d talk about it. Look. You’ve only got four days left. Stick it out.”

  “Four days! No, Mom—that’s so unfair—”

  The phone was ringing again. Lord. Who was calling this early? I reached for it, but it stopped. Nick must have gotten it again. I picked it up anyway.

  “… from the Daily News.” It was a man’s voice. “Is Zoe Hayes there?”

  “Mom,” Molly nagged.

  “Shh—” I gestured, telling her to wait. She stamped her foot, pouting.

  “She’s not available,” Nick was saying. “Just like she wasn’t when you called half an hour ago.”

  He’d called half an hour ago? Why hadn’t I heard the phone? “When can I speak to her? I’d need just a couple of—” “I have no idea.”

  “Whom am I speaking with, if I may ask?” Nick hung up, and so did I.

  “Mom. That’s so unfair,” Molly continued where she’d left off. “I hate school. It’s like jail—”

  Jail? How would she know what jail was like? And how could a six-year-old argue so persistently and articulately? Molly was, as always, a bafflement to me.

  “Three Corners School is not anything like jail, Molls.”

  “It is too. They tell you what to do and where to go. And what to wear—you have to wear their stupid skirts. And you have to eat their stupid slop for lunch.”

  “Molly, stop. The bus is coming. Go, get your clothes on.” My head throbbed. I’d paid a hefty chunk for her to go to that “jail.” Over three thousand dollars a semester for that private kindergarten near the Art Museum. The school had music, a library, art, drama, sports, hands-on math and science, computers—every sort of subject a child could possibly want. Hell, forget children—

  I’d have liked to go. I couldn’t understand how anyone, Molly included, could be unhappy there.

  “Mom, I can’t believe you’re making me go. It’s torture.”

  Torture? “Get dressed, Molls.”

  “Mrs. Rutledge is a moron. If I have to go for a whole ‘nother week, I’ll die . . .”

  “You’ll die?” Nick walked in, scooping Molly into his arms. “We can’t have that. What’s the trouble?” He was playful, but his eyes were somber.

  “She’s going to be late for school,” I said.

  He set her down. “Then you better hurry,” he told her.

  Molly never argued with Nick. She was often coy or obviously manipulative, but she never argued with him. In some ways, I was jealous of her open adoration for him.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll go. But only today. Only one more day.” And she stomped off to get her things.

  The phone began to ring again.

  “Don’t bother,” Nick sighed. “It’s probably the press again. They’ve been calling all morning.” All morning? “I only heard one call.”

  He smiled. “You slept right through them. There’ve been about six.” “Really?”

  Grinning his half-grin, he hugged me. “You were snoring.” He kissed me softly.

  “Not possible. I don’t snore. You dreamed it.” I reached my arms around his neck and, as if on cue, the phone began again. We tried to ignore it, but the mood had shattered and we separated. I watched the phone, waiting for it to stop.

  “Mom!” Molly yelled. “The phone! I’ll get it—”

  “No, Molls. Just let it ring.”

  “But Mom—” she yelled back. “Somebody’s calling!” Mercifully, the ringing stopped.<
br />
  “I called Tony,” Nick said. “He had the boat rowed back to Humberton. You and Susan don’t have to worry about it.”

  Damn, I’d forgotten all about getting the boat. “Was Tony mad?”

  “Didn’t seem to be. He was mostly concerned about you and Susan. Wanted to hear all about it.” Nick stepped into the shower. I followed him into the bathroom and looked in the mirror at an alarming woman with wild and tangled hair resembling jungle vines. Her eyes were hollowed out, and there was a fresh multicolored bruise on her left cheek. Disturbed, I looked away, squeezing cinnamon paste onto my toothbrush. It slithered out and wound around, clung snakelike to the bristles. Nothing seemed normal.

  “Everyone in creation has called here this morning.” Nick talked above the water. “Reporters. Cyrus Poole, that talk-radio guy. The Good Morning Show. And your friends. Let me see— Davinder, Karen, Marla. They read about you in the paper and were worried. And Dr. Arash and Amy Dennis from the Institute. And Susan’s called about six times, frantic. The press is hounding her, too. The story’s all over the news, Zoe. Headlines in the Inquirer and Daily News. And, not to alarm you, a couple of television trucks are setting up outside, ready to pounce.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Patting my face dry, I stared at the mirror, feeling assaulted, examining an egg-sized scrape on my chin.

  “You don’t have to talk to them, Zoe. If I were you, I wouldn’t.”

  “What do they want?”

  “You know. Moans. Tears. Shock. Blood, if possible. The usual.”

  “I don’t want to talk to them.” “Then don’t.”

  Nick’s cell phone rang. He reached for a towel while I handed him the phone, and he took the call running his hand through his hair, cursing. Frowning, he finally hung up and went into the bedroom, plopping down on the edge of the bed.

  In general, Nick was a poker player, not revealing much, keeping his work separate from his personal life, refusing to discuss even the most general aspects of his cases. But this time I was personally involved. I had a right, I thought, to ask what was wrong. To my surprise, he answered.

  “No surprise, really. The FBI and INS are yanking the case.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t say more. If I appeared too curious or asked too many questions, Nick would clam up and tell me nothing.

  “The women were foreign nationals. There’s really no way to trace them, but they were illegals. Maybe from Malaysia. Possibly Hong Kong.”

  “But how can they tell?” I didn’t understand. Did an illegal immigrant look different from a legal one? An Asian different from an Asian American?

  “There’s an ongoing investigation into the business.”

  I wasn’t following. “The business?”

  “Trafficking.” He rubbed his eyes.

  I still didn’t get it. The business of trafficking? But trafficking what? Women? As in slaves? Wait, that couldn’t be right. “Are you serious?”

  Nick stood and began to get dressed. “They bring women into the country, smuggle them or lure them here on false pretenses, promising them jobs or husbands and so on. Women come from Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe. All over. Then they get sold into prostitution, porno, factory labor, whatever. As slaves.” He stepped into a pair of khakis but didn’t zip them. “Murphy told me about a Park Avenue couple that got busted last month. They bought a Guatemalan woman to clean their apartment and babysit their kids. Apparently, they thought she was a good investment; they planned to sell up after they trained her. To make a profit.”

  I swallowed, trying to absorb what he was saying. Slavery. In America. In the twenty-first century. It made no sense. I checked Nick’s face for traces of sick humor, but there were none. He was serious. And I’d seen the bodies myself—hell, I’d gone swimming with them. Still, I had trouble accepting what he’d said. “Why don’t they run away? Or call for help?”

  “I guess they don’t speak much English.” He pulled on a light blue sport shirt. “Plus they don’t know their rights. Don’t know they have any rights.”

  I still didn’t quite get it. “But how does the FBI know that the women in the river are part of that?”

  Nick was buttoning his shirt, tucking it into his pants. “There’s evidence. Typical of the trade.”

  I waited, not daring to ask.

  “Manacle marks on the wrists and ankles.”

  Manacle marks?

  “And you saw their shoulders.”

  On its own, my hand rose to my shoulder. “What about them?” “You didn’t see?” No. “See what?”

  “Damn. I thought you’d seen them. Look, Zoe. This stuff isn’t being released to the press. It can’t leave this room.” I nodded. “Of course not.”

  Nick sat beside me, hesitating, measuring what he said. “The women had tattoos on their shoulders. Three small curved parallel lines.” He traced the lines on my arm. “That’s the logo of the cartel that sells them.”

  I shuddered, suddenly cold. The women had been branded? Labeled with logos, like cereal boxes? Like cans of soup?

  “This cartel makes drug dealers look like teddy bears. They’d just as soon slaughter anyone who looks their way. Which is another reason you don’t want to talk to the press. Keep a low profile on this.”

  I nodded. The women had been manacled, marked, murdered and dumped into the river.

  “By the way, when you flipped, did you or Susan lose a Hum-berton hat?”

  A hat? “No.”

  Nick frowned. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why?”

  He tried to sound casual. “Just wondered.”

  “Nick, tell me. Was there a Humberton hat in the river?”

  He watched me for a moment, then took a deep breath. “This is strictly confidential, Zoe. A Humberton hat was pulled out of the water with the women. Caught in their clothes. I thought it might be yours or Susan’s.”

  “No.” I pictured a floating floral skirt, a hat tangled in the hem. “It’s not ours.”

  A Humberton hat? Was someone from Humberton Barge involved in the deaths? In the slave trade? No, I told myself. That was impossible. The hat had to be a coincidence. Probably the women had floated into someone’s lost hat and carried it along with them as they drifted downriver. That had to be it.

  “What I’m telling you stays here, Zoe. Not even Susan—”

  “Of course.” I nodded.

  Nick had confided in me. I was flattered, amazed. But Nick frowned and stared into the air, eyes smoldering. Oh, God. Was there more? I almost didn’t want to know.

  “Nick?” He was scaring me. “Are you okay?”

  He looked at me, surprised, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Sorry. It’s the damned FBI. I can’t stop them from yanking the case, but until they do the paperwork, as far as I’m concerned the case is mine. There were nineteen homicides committed in this city and I won’t give up on them. Not yet.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Nick had just warned me about the slave cartel, how dangerous it was. Why couldn’t he stay out of this mess and let the FBI do their job? I sat beside him, feeling hot anger radiate from his skin. No, Nick wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t. Not when nineteen dead women with tattoos and shackle marks had been found floating down the Schuylkill River.

  A horn honked outside, and I realized it had been honking repeatedly for a while. Oh, Lord. I hadn’t been paying attention. It was the bus from Three Corners School.

  NINE

  “MOLLY-” I CALLED.

  Molly didn’t answer.

  “Molls—” I called again, hurrying to her room, finding it empty. “Molly?”

  Damn. She was ignoring me. Refusing to go. Being strong-willed and stubborn, hiding to avoid school. I ran downstairs, opened the front door to wave at the bus driver.

  “Ms. Hayes—Zoe Hayes?” Someone shoved a microphone into my face.

  I recoiled instinctively, shoving it away.

  “Zoe, can we ask you about the events at the river—
”

  “Just one minute—she’s coming!” I yelled to the driver, and slamming the door on the microphone, I raced through the house, calling Molly, reminding her that she’d agreed to go, pleading with her, threatening her, even bribing her, using every ploy I could think of to get her to come out. I searched the powder room, my studio, the living room, the coat and broom closets, the kitchen.

  “Find her?” Nick called from upstairs.

  I looked up at him and shook my head, eyes tearing. No, I hadn’t found her. I was tired, aching, bruised, and suddenly overwhelmed. I’d survived a cold swim with nineteen dead women and was able to face a media frenzy, but an obstinate six-year-old was reducing me to tears.

  “Molls,” Nick called. “Yo. Hop to. The bus is waiting.”

  From out of nowhere, Molly bounced into the kitchen, all smiles and sunshine. Grabbing her backpack, she hugged Nick,

  then me. “See you later, Mom. ‘Bye, Nick.” And lightly kissing my cheek, she skipped out the door, bumping into the cameramen.

  “Um—Mom?” She stopped on the steps, confused.

  “Hi there,” one of them began to interview her. “What’s your name?”

  “Ignore them.” I pushed the door open and stepped onto the porch beside her. “Don’t even talk to them—”

  At the sight of me, reporters started calling, “Ms. Hayes? What were you doing on the river last night? Can you answer a few questions?”

  Molly stood still, warily eyeing the news crews. Sheltering her with my arms, glaring fiercely, I forged a pathway through the squawking crowd, led Molly down the front steps and walked her to the bus. When she was safely on board and the bus had driven off, I turned back and faced the throng. And once again, having no choice, I closed my eyes and plunged, swimming blindly through a mass of bodies—hands, heads and arms—in order to get home.

  TEN

  THE HOUSE WAS FINALLY QUIET, EXCEPT FOR THE RINGING phone, which I’d begun to tune out. I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and stared out at the street, watching traffic and pedestrians pass the lone television truck that was still parked outside. Nick had managed to convince most of the press to go away before he left for work, but a persistent young news reporter remained, recording her segment over and over again with my house as her background, doing take after take because the breeze blew her hair into her face. Or a truck grumbled too loudly up the street. Or horns honked and people hooted because they recognized her. I sipped coffee, ignoring the incessant ringing of the phone, hoping the news team would finally get it right and go away.