“I have a daughter myself,” he said. “Can’t even bear to think of such a thing happening.”
“Not wanted for murder just yet, I hope,” Sarah said with a withering brightness before she could stop herself. The poor man winced and Benjamin looked away.
“No, ma’am,” the sheriff said quietly.
They sat down and the two men chatted about the weather and nothing much else until the waitress came and took their orders. Then, leaning forward and talking in a low voice so as not to be overheard, Sheriff Riggs had taken them through what had happened. He told them about the skiers finding Abbie in the ice and how the autopsy at the crime lab hadn’t been able to establish either how she came to be there or how exactly she had died. He asked if they had any ideas about why she might have been in that part of the world and Benjamin said they hadn’t. Abbie had suffered head injuries, the sheriff went on, as well as a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. And there was water in her lungs, which suggested she might have drowned. The best guess at the moment was that the injuries had been sustained in a serious fall, the cause of which remained unknown.
“You mean, someone could have pushed her?” Benjamin said.
“That has to be one possibility, yes, sir.” He glanced at Sarah, no doubt gauging her sensitivity to such talk. She felt vaguely affronted.
“What about suicide?” she said.
Benjamin looked at her in surprise.
“Abbie would never do that,” he said.
“How would you know?” she snapped.
They both stared at her. The spite just seemed to come spouting out of her of its own accord. She hurried on, trying to soften it.
“I mean, how can any of us know? She’s been missing so long, we don’t know what might have been going on.”
“You’re right, Mrs. Cooper,” Charlie Riggs said gently. “It has to be another possibility we can’t yet rule out.” She could tell he was getting the measure of how things stood between her and Benjamin. He probably already had her down as a prize bitch. She would have to get a grip and curb her tongue.
“Anyhow,” the sheriff went on. “I want you to know that this is a top priority. We’re going to keep going up there while the snow starts to melt. Hopefully we’ll find something that’ll help build us a picture of what happened.”
If either of them wanted to go see where Abbie was found, he said a little awkwardly, he would be happy to show them. Benjamin thanked him and said he might well come back in a week or two to do that. How absurd and pointless, Sarah thought but managed to stop herself from saying. She couldn’t think of anything worse—except seeing the body itself, which they were planning to do later, though she wasn’t at all sure she could handle it.
The sheriff seemed about to say something else when the waitress arrived with the food. If so, he thought better of it and not a lot more was said while he and Benjamin ate. Sarah had ordered some wheat toast but didn’t even touch it. What she really craved was a cigarette but she wasn’t about to dent her dignity further by stepping out into the rain to have one.
When they had finished, Charlie Riggs said that if they didn’t mind, he would take them along to the Federal Building on Pattee Street to meet the local FBI agent who had a few routine questions to ask them which might help them all find out what happened to Abbie. Sarah said that would be fine. Then, looking a little uncomfortable, he reached for the plastic bag beside him.
“These are the clothes your daughter was wearing when we found her,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d want them, but one of the girls in the office washed and ironed them. The jacket’s torn pretty bad. In the fall, I guess. Anyhow.”
He handed the bag to Benjamin, who instead of just thanking him and putting it to one side, pulled out the red ski jacket and opened it up. Sarah could see his eyes filling as he looked at it. For heaven’s sake, she thought. Not here, not now. If he lost control, she would surely follow. She silently reached across and took the jacket from him and stuffed it back into the bag.
Charlie Riggs cleared his throat.
“There’s one other important thing I haven’t yet told you,” he said. His voice was grave and he paused as if searching for the right words.
“Something they discovered in the autopsy that you probably didn’t know. At the time of her death, Abbie was two months pregnant.”
Over the years, Charlie had met more than a few FBI agents and had gotten along fine with nearly all of them. There had been one or two who came on too strong or a little patronizing but the rest had always been courteous and decent and good at their jobs. Jack Andrews, the last one he’d had dealings with in the Missoula office and whom the Coopers had met when their daughter first disappeared, Charlie had liked a lot. But his successor, this young upstart Wayne Hammler, was something else.
They had been sitting in his stuffy little office for most of an hour and during that time he had barely let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Even with his GI’s haircut and snappy blue blazer, he looked about fifteen years old. Maybe that was why he felt he had to pontificate to them like a pompous polecat. Right now he was giving the Coopers a speech about interagency synergy and forensic information analysis systems, whatever the hell they were. All he’d really done so far was go through again what Charlie had already told them. Mr. Cooper still seemed to be listening politely, but for the last ten minutes his ex-wife had been staring out of the window.
Charlie had been staring at her. It was kind of hard not to. He wondered how old she might be. These East Coast city women took care of themselves. Mid-forties, maybe. She was tall and elegant and had clearly once been a great-looking woman. In happier circumstances, if she put on a few pounds and let that cropped blond hair grow a little, she still could be. The dark blue dress suited her and Charlie would have put money on those little diamond studs in her ears being the real thing. All in all, Sarah Cooper was what his daddy used to call “a class act.” Mind, that sharp tongue of hers sure seemed to have her ex-husband on eggshells. Charlie knew from his own dealings with Sheryl how the poor guy must feel. But he’d seen bereaved mothers behave like this before. Anger was probably just her way of hanging by her fingernails to sanity.
But now and then, behind that cool façade, he’d gotten a glimpse of how fragile and wounded she was. And it moved him to see a creature so graceful in so much pain. The look in her eyes when she learned about her daughter being pregnant was close to heartbreaking and it was still there now as she gazed out at the rain. Since Charlie broke the news, she’d barely spoken a word.
Ben Cooper bore his grief more visibly. He seemed like a decent enough guy. They must have once made a fine couple, the kind you saw in those society magazines, sitting on a yacht or by a swimming pool, happy and perfect and probably on the brink of divorce. Charlie wondered what had gone wrong between the two of them, whether it was all about their daughter or whether they had traveled some other special route to sadness of their own devising. There was a story there, he had no doubt, along with the same old story shared by himself and countless others, of guilt and grudge and shattered hope.
He followed the woman’s gaze. The rain had gotten heavier and there was a wind now too. The trees outside were starting to come into leaf and through the frantic branches he could see squalls thrashing the roofs of three U.S. Mail vans parked below in the street. A young woman in a clear plastic poncho was pushing a boy in a wheelchair along the sidewalk, trying to keep him dry with a red umbrella. Charlie looked again at Mrs. Cooper and found she was looking at him. He smiled and with his eyes tried to apologize for Hammler, who was still droning on behind his immaculately organized desk. There was a little chrome pot of perfectly sharpened pencils and a matching tray for his staples and paper clips. The little creep even had a coaster for his coffee cup. Charlie remembered someone once saying that you should never trust a man with a tidy desk. Hammler’s was borderline obsessive.
Mrs. Cooper didn’t smile back. Instead she turned and glared
at her ex-husband. Whether it was because of the polite attention the poor guy was giving Hammler or for some other transgression, Charlie couldn’t tell.
“So, that’s where things stand as far as the investigation goes,” the agent was saying. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to ask you both some questions.”
“Okay,” Mr. Cooper said. “If it’ll help. Go ahead.”
Hammler had his questions all neatly listed on a legal pad, squarely placed with a new pencil in front of him. The first was about when the Coopers had last seen or heard from their daughter. Charlie had already asked and he pointed this out to Hammler but to no avail. Mr. Cooper answered patiently, if a little wearily, but Charlie could see his ex-wife starting to seethe. Finally, when the agent began asking about Abbie’s character and personality and whether they would describe her as being prone to bouts of depression, she exploded.
“Listen. You people have asked us all of this God knows how many times. We came to hear what you had to tell us, not to go over all this old stuff again. If you want to know these things, look at the files. It’s all there. Everything Abbie ever did or said or had for breakfast is there. Just look it up.”
Hammler blushed. Charlie nearly cheered.
“Mrs. Cooper, I’m well aware how difficult a time this is—”
“Difficult? Difficult! You haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Mrs. Cooper—”
“Who the hell do you think you are!”
She was on her feet now and heading for the door.
“I’m not listening to any more of this bullshit.”
All the men had stood up too. Hammler looked like a kid who’d just been mugged for his candy. He started to say something but Mrs. Cooper, swinging the door open, turned to face them and cut him off.
“When you’ve got something new to tell us, I’m sure we’d be only too delighted to hear from you. But this morning, Wayne, we’re a little pressed for time. We have to go pick up our dead daughter and ship her home for the funeral. So if you’ll excuse us, we’ll go now. Come on, Benjamin.”
And she was gone. Her footsteps echoing angrily down the corridor. Hammler’s jaw was jutting and he seemed about to head off in pursuit. Charlie stepped forward and gently restrained him.
“Let her go,” he said quietly.
“But there’s a lot to—”
“Later. It’s not the right time.”
Ben Cooper was just standing there with his head bowed, looking forlorn and embarrassed. Charlie picked up the poor guy’s coat and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Come on,” he said. “You’ll need a lift.”
The sheriff parked outside the hotel and they sat in his truck for a few minutes with the rain drumming on the roof. He reassured them again that he would do everything in his power to find out how Abbie died. Ben was in the front and kept glancing over his shoulder at Sarah who hadn’t said a word and didn’t even seem to be listening. She sat hunched by the back window, silhouetted by the silver rivering of water on the glass. Her hair was wet and straggled and the collar of her white raincoat turned so high it looked as if she might at any moment vanish.
The sheriff apologized again for the FBI man and promised to call as soon as he had any news. They thanked him and went inside to check out and collect their bags. While Ben paid the bill, Sarah stood alone under the portico and when he had finished and came out to join her, she didn’t wait for him to come alongside but turned and walked ahead of him out to the car, heedless of the rain, her arms folded tight to her chest. Ben noticed the backs of her calves were spattered with mud and the sight touched him and made him want to say something comforting, even if it was only to declare his admiration for the way she had stood up to that little FBI creep. But he was too wary of her now and didn’t trust himself to find the right words or tone.
As they drove slowly out along Broadway to the funeral home, the repeating thud and swish of the wipers made the silence between them so loud that Ben could bear it no longer.
“How the hell could she be pregnant?” he blurted.
With a week’s notice, he couldn’t have come up with anything more crass. Sarah turned and looked at him and he swallowed and stared ahead and braced himself for the blistering put-down. But she said nothing.
Jim Pickering was waiting in the reception area to welcome them. He was wearing a smart suit in a middling shade of blue, dark enough to be formal but not somber. From one glance at Sarah he seemed to sense that it was best to keep words to a minimum and soon he was leading the way once more to the viewing room.
Ben asked if she wanted him to go in with her and was neither surprised nor offended, only relieved, when she said she would rather see Abbie alone. The image of the girl in her white gown was etched in his head and he doubted he could bear the etching of another, of mother and daughter together. Instead, he went with Jim Pickering into the office along the corridor to do the paperwork.
There were documents to sign and details to be given for the death certificate and forms to complete for the shipping of the body to New York. The only airline able to ship bodies out of Missoula was Northwest, which meant connecting through Minneapolis. Jim Pickering had made the necessary arrangements. Abbie’s casket, he explained, would be placed in something called an “air tray,” a box with a plywood bottom and a cardboard top.
At dinner last night, Sarah had casually announced that her father would be meeting them at La Guardia and that it might be better if Ben flew back to New Mexico from Minneapolis.
“I was thinking I’d stay over in New York until the funeral,” he said. “You know, help arrange things, spend some time with Joshie.”
“We can handle it.”
“I know you can. I’d just like to be involved.”
“Please don’t make an issue of this.”
“I’m not. I—”
“There’s nothing that can’t be sorted out by phone. Come if you want, I just can’t face a scene between you and Daddy at the airport.”
“I suppose it’s okay if I come to the funeral?”
“Why do you have to be so hostile?”
Ben narrowly avoided saying something he would regret. But he was getting tired of being bullied and excluded and on this issue he wasn’t going to give in. There was a job to be done. And he wanted to see Josh; he had to see him. Any father would feel the same.
“Listen,” he said as steadily as he could. “She’s my daughter too. And there won’t be a scene. I can handle your parents. I’ve done it for years. I want to come with you. Please.”
She sighed and raised her eyebrows but that was the end of it.
The paperwork was done now, but Sarah still hadn’t emerged from the viewing room, so Ben walked along to the room where a selection of urns and caskets stood on display. As he wandered around inspecting them, it occurred to him that perhaps he should have opted for something more lavish than the plain wood casket. Even now, Sarah was probably thinking, yet again, that he had been cheap. The more splendid ones cost around four thousand dollars. But they looked so pretentious and too grown-up. No doubt somewhere, he mused darkly, they had a special range for the younger deceased. The only thing he liked was an ornate bronze urn sculpted like a mountain, with pine trees and three deer—an antlered male, a female, and a cute little fawn. It was kind of Disney, but much more like Abbie. But, of course, they weren’t cremating her.
“Shall we go?”
Sarah stood framed in the doorway, Jim Pickering hovering discreetly behind her. She was wearing sunglasses, her face as pale as her raincoat. Ben stepped toward her. He wanted to put his arms around her. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. But she read his intention and with the smallest gesture of her hand signaled that he shouldn’t.
“Are you okay?” he asked stupidly.
“Fine.”
“I was just having a look here and wondering if we should get a better casket,” he blundered on. “I mean, I like the plain one, but . . .”
>
From behind her shades, she gave the room a quick, derisive scan.
“There’s nothing here. I’ll get one at home.”
The plane took off on schedule into a clear blue sky. The rain had stopped just as they arrived at the airport as though it had been laid on only for their visit. From the windows of the departure lounge they had seen the wagon trundle Abbie out across the damp asphalt to the plane where four young men, chatting all the while, lifted and stowed it.
Now, as the plane banked and headed east, the forest skidding in vivid shades of sunlit green across the port-holes, Sarah thought of the body tilting coldly in its narrow case below her in the dark of the hold. The fact of her daughter’s death remained too vast to grasp and perhaps that was why her mind kept flitting strangely to these lesser facts, the circumstantial detail of the girl’s unliving presence.
Standing alone by the open casket at the funeral home, she had been shocked, not at the sight of the body, so prettily, so ridiculously prepared, but at her own sense of detachment. She had been expecting it to be the moment when the bolted floodgates of her grief would at last open. But it had been like watching herself in a movie or through thick plate glass, through which no emotion seemed able to pass. She had put on the sunglasses, which still she hadn’t removed, not because her eyes were ravaged by tears but because they weren’t. She felt like an impostor. And that was probably why she had so cruelly shunned Benjamin’s embrace afterward. She saw—and not without pity—how much it hurt him.
Poor, wretched Benjamin. She took a sideways look at him now, sitting across the aisle. The flight was less than half-full and the seats had arms that could be hoisted out of the way. At Sarah’s suggestion, to give themselves more space, they had each occupied an empty row. He was staring out at the mountains, lost in thought. In his mournful way, he was still a handsome man, though the longer hair made him seem to be trying too hard to look young. He wasn’t as gaunt as the last time she had seen him and the extra weight suited him. She was glad she could assess him like this now, almost objectively, without yearning for him to come back. She didn’t really even hate him anymore.